Thursday, December 31, 2015

Iunctim, Iuncta or Simul

CMI : Why believe God took as long as six days to create?
Published: 19 December 2015 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/instantaneous-creation


Regarding the second problem, patristics expert Dr Benno Zuiddam explains it well in Augustine: young earth creationist:

He [church father Augustine of Hippo] used an old Latin version when he quoted from Jesus Sirach 18:1 (‘He who lives eternally has made omnia simul’). Augustine interpreted the Latin words omnia simul as ‘everything at the same time’. He consequently thought that God would have created everything instantaneously. That is why he came up with the theory that Creation should have been shorter than six earth days.


The newer Latin translation being made in his time also has:

Qui vivet in aeternum creavit omnia simul. Deus solus justificabitur, et manet invictus rex in aeternum.

The word "simul" translates the Greek κοινηι. Which means together, which Douai Reims duly has.

He that liveth for ever created all things together. God only shall be justified, and he remaineth an invincible king for ever.

There is an anectode (by now of course very ecdote!) of St Jerome one night being beaten for being too Classic in his Latin. Angels beat him up and told him "you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian!" So he woke up and wrote a less Classical Latin.

My suspicion is that he was trying to translate κοινηι as iunctim - the true Classical word for together (as an adverb).

However, in his day nobody said iunctim any more. In Italy of Pope Damasus, in Gaul where he had stayed and probably in his native Stridon too (though there we have no Romance language surviving to prove it), one had started using "simul" or even (and that much less Classical, by Latin standards even incorrect) "insimul" for "together". In French it gives "ensemble" and in Italian "insieme".

However, in Spain and presumably also St Augustine's North Africa, one was probably using an adjective as a predicative attribute. "They went togethery" instead of "they went together". In original "iuncti" if qualifying a masculine plural nominative, like example given (ibant iuncti), OR, "iunctos" if qualifying a masculine plural accusative (We saw them together - vidimus eos iunctos). Hence Spanish "juntos" in this meaning (and "juntas" for feminines), even in nominative function.

So, St Augustine was NOT used to using simul or insimul for iunctim, and he did not find iuncta (accusative neuter plural), which he would have understood as the vernacular for iunctim.

So, if he had been praying for St Jerome to be duly corrected if trying to be too Classical, he may well have got more than he bargained for. If St Jerome had only been allowed to be as Classical as he wished, he would have translated iunctim, and St Augustine would have understood.

If St Augustine, as a bishop, prayed for St Jerome (who was only a priest, not a bishop) to be corrected about too classical Latin, he got what he wanted. But he got more than he bargained for, he got a place he got wrong, because he didn't master the vulgar of NW of Mediterranean, where St Jerome took his form from. And now he is suffering the relative shame of his "not literally six days" being taken as a warrant for "millions of years".

So, that may be why bishops in the Latin Church since then have a tendency to give intellectuals and geeks more slack.

However, there is another side to this: Sts Jerome and Augustine lived in a world where they were expected to use daily, like corresponding to using Shakespearean English now. The real vernacular being used for things like Beavis and Butthead or South Park. And THAT is what the Bible was translated to. Gives a little of a new slant to the rumour the Bible was put into Latin to "stop people from reading it", doesn't it?

You may now go and read:

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Answers about "The Forbidden Book"
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.fr/2013/01/answers-about-forbidden-book.html


Hans Georg Lundahl
Wishing Happy New Year
from Paris

Thursday, December 17, 2015

No, I am not a believer in Astrology


1) Astrology may well be astrolatry, BUT not because of geocentrism "of Babylonians" or of extra month in Pagan Greek calendar. ; 2) No, I am not a believer in Astrology

Text from 9 Amazing Astrology Facts My comments.
 
1.) In 2010, a study by Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee accidentally provided scientific proof that there is a connection between the position of the planets on your date of birth and your personality. The study conducted on mice proved that not only was their behavior affected by their birth date but also their brain activity patterns. Mice are not created in God's image. (Reepicheep is fictional.)
 
2.) There have been many famous followers and believers of astrology throughout history. These include Queen Elizabeth I, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein to name just a few. As you can imagine the astrological advice given to these powerful people could well have had a big influence on the course of history. Didn't you forget Hitler on the list? Or was it some other Nazi?
 
3.) Many words that are used today have a connection to astrology. For example, the word disaster is derived from the Latin word for bad star. The word lunatic derives from the word Luna meaning moon and refers to the impact that the moon is supposed to have on our emotional well-being. Yes. So? Btw, dysaster is Greek (δυσαςηρ).
 
4.) You can study for a degree in astrology at a number of Universities. The Kepler College in Seattle, Washington was the first to offer the degree. You can even do a Master of the Arts (MA) post-graduate degree in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the University of Wales in the United Kingdom. You can even study for degrees in psychology and psychiatry, doesn't mean THEY are sciences!

Not to mention you can study astrophysics and evolutionary biology for degrees, doesn't mean THESE are sciences either!
 
5.) Some astrological signs are more common than others. It is believed that Scorpio is the most common sign of the zodiac whilst Aquarius is the least common of the signs. The signs in order of the most common to least common are Scorpio, Virgo, Gemini, Pisces, Libra, Cancer, Taurus, Capricorn, Aries, Sagittarius, Leo and Aquarius. Stamps me as a very common man - especially if it is supposed to affect behaviour.
 
6.) Astrology is older than astronomy. Astrology was very much considered an academic subject. It was not until the 1600s that interest in astrology led to the development of astronomy. Evidence of astrology has been found as early as the 2000 years BC in ancient Babylon in texts found by historians since. This is actually wrong. Astrology always presupposes astronomy. But astronomy can be used for other applications or left practically unused. Also, astronomy is not equivalent to Heliocentrism, an aberration which indeed arose out of astrological interest.
 
7.) Astrologers believe that the moon can affect humans in the same way that it affects the tides of the sea as humans are made of a large percentage of water. They believe that the phase of the moon can impact on human emotions causing feelings of emotion highs and lows. But does not affect the way we deal with it, at any rate.
 
8.) The most famous astrologer in the world is probably Michel de Nostredame who wrote under the pseudonym Nostradamus. In his 66 years of life he reportedly predicted world events both during the time he was alive and long after his death. He has been credited with predicting the great fire of London, the atomic bomb and Hitler’s rise to power amongst others. 
  • a) Nostradamus is not a pseudonym, it is a latinisation. Actually not a quite correct one. The grammatically correct for Nostredame is Nostradomina.

    Perhaps he was playing on an older French (or Provençal, he was from the South of France, from Provence) "dames" = donnons, a form like "sommes", and like the 1p pl of past simple forms. "nous allâmes, nous fîmes, nous donnâmes ...". "Nostra damus" means "we give [what is] ours". So, if Nostredame means "Our Lady", it was a wrong latinisation, but if there was a word play on a French meaning "we give [what is] ours", it was even a right one. I don't know enough French & Provençal historic linguistics to know if this could be the case.

  • b) His predictions were not made primarily by astrology, but by inducing himself into a hypnotic state.

  • c) Whether x has been predicted in them is always very disputable, since his words have less clear meanings.
 
9 a) The word Zodiac is derived from the Latin word zodiacus meaning ‘circle of little animals’.  Correct, except that the word is a loan from Greek, and the complete Greek phrase for it would in Latin letters be "ho zodiacus cyclus" (ο ζοδιακος κυκλος). Also, "little" is probably irrelevant. It is also a fact of astronomy that these stars do exist around the plane where Sun, Moon and other Planets circle around Earth (some would claim : Earth with Moon and other planets around Sun). This is also correctly associated with the seasons. When Sun is in Capricorn, we have Northern Hemisphere Winter.

This remains true whatever the planets and stars may mean for behaviour of mice or for moods even of men.
 
9 b) Libra, the only sign to not have an association with an animal, was not recognised as a sign by the Greeks who used the word Zodiac. Libra came along much later documented by the Romans around the 3rd century BC. Probably false. The fact that most are conventionally beasts does for one thing not prevent one or two exceptions, and also, "to zoon" would involve either man or beast. Or, for that matter, a goddess holding a balance:

Μυθολογικά o Ζυγός σχετίζεται με τη Θεά Δίκη και με την Νέμεσις. Για τους Αιγύπτιους εσήμαινε την κρίση των ψυχών ενώπιων του Aνουβι όπου η καρδιά ζυγιζόταν κι αν ήταν ελαφρύτερη ενός πτερού οδηγούνταν ενώπιον του Οσίριδος. Αν ήταν βαρύτερη καταστρεφόταν από την Αμμούτ. Αν το βάρος της καρδιάς εξισσοροπούσε τότε η ψυχή επανασαρκωνόταν ώστε να λάβει τα απαραίτητα γι'αυτήν μαθήματα.


No mention here of earlier Greeks not using it!

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Chiara Bozzone on Caland System - Short Review, Trubetskoyan Comment


1) Human population after Noah, racial and demographic pseudoproblems for creationism, 2) Have "Humans Interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans"?, 3) Sorry, Duursma, but all languages have the cases of Proto-Indoeuropean, there is no primitive language ... (which is on Φιλολoγικά/Philologica blog), 4) After Flood and Babel : Was There a PIE Unity?, 5) Chiara Bozzone on Caland System - Short Review, Trubetskoyan Comment (which is again on Φιλολoγικά/Philologica blog)

I am giving only her conclusions, now:

9. Conclusions

[9.1] The Caland system represents an older class of Pre-PIE Adjectives that were verbal in nature. In Pre-PIE, the system was presumably limited to finite forms of a root aorist used in predicative function, and root aorist participles used in attributive function. Next to this, Pre-PIE had an INSTRUMENTAL PREDICATIVE CONSTRUCTION that could be used with nouns expressing property concepts.

[9.2] When IE shifted to having noun-like adjectives (probably as a result of developing into a mainly DEPENDENT-MARKING language), the Caland roots had to be adapted to the new system via derivation. They then received suffixes which clearly shaped them into nouns, adjectives, and verbs; these are the Caland suffixes. The old root aorists (once the basis of the system) were gradually eliminated, and only few direct and indirect traces of them remain in the daughter languages.

[9.3] As the system was shifting, PIE came to have a SWITCH adjective strategy (like Biblical Hebrew and Oromo). In this strategy, Caland roots could inflect both verbally and nominally; in particular, adjectival predication was done nominally in the present (using the instrumental of a new Caland root noun), and verbally in the aorist (using the old root aorist). It is in this system that the instrumental *-eh1 was reanalyzed as an imperfective suffix, and was provided with personal endings, yielding the stative present of the Lat. calere type. In some daughter languages, common imperfective suffixes (plain thematic *-o/e-, *-ske/o-, *-ye/o-, nasal affixes etc.) were used to the same end.

From: Academia : The Origin of the Caland System and the Typology of Adjectives
by Chiara Bozzone, UCLA
at occasion of East Coast Indo-European Conference XXXIII, June 6, 2014
https://www.academia.edu/7281904/The_Origin_of_the_Caland_System_and_the_Typology_of_Adjectives


Well, on the assumption of development from an ancestral language - proto- or even (as in this case) pre-indo-european, her conclusions are pretty well documented.

On the other hand, the material itself does somewhat suggest "esperantisation" or "russenorskification" on an advanced level (not by bunglers who reduce morphology to a bare minimum) - diverse real parent languages contributing diverse strategies of expression, and in case of giving the adjective to the "common stock" of "international" vocabulary, obviously tended to, but did not need to, each, primarily retain the one in vogue with its own pre-indo-europeanised stage.

Chiara's explanation is at its most basic:

[4.2] In this layer of Pre-PIE, to say "the cat is/becomes red", one would say "the cat reds". We shall discuss the inflection of such forms below; for now, we can just assume that these were root formations. Such CALAND ROOT VERBS would then constitute the bedrock of Caland formations, and provide the base on which the rest of the system is eventually derived.

[4.3] Later, when IE developed a noun-like adjective class (the productive one we observe in all IE languages), Caland formations had to be reshaped to fit within the new system. In this process, IE derived both nominal and verbal formations to the Caland roots. We would then have:

  • New verbal formations: *h1rudh-eh1-ye/o-, *h1rewdh-e/o-, etc.

  • New nominal formations: *h1rewdh-i-/-u-/-ro- etc.


And mine:

    • One language would contribute a verb to the stock of adjectives,
    • One an adjective in -ro-,
    • One an adjective in -i-,
    • One an adjective in -u-


    • Languages with verb-like adjectives would add noun like adjectives in -ro- etc from other languages,
    • Languages with noun-like adjectives would add verb like adjectives from other languages,


    • Then : Each language would have an enlarged stock of adjectival expressions, and would even tend (often in concord with each other) to enlarge each ajective into all or many of the possible forms.
    • Hence the system of secondary derivatives noted in 4.4 is "seemingly lacking a synchronic base".


Now, do look up her very good essay:

Academia : The Origin of the Caland System and the Typology of Adjectives
by Chiara Bozzone, UCLA
at occasion of East Coast Indo-European Conference XXXIII, June 6, 2014
https://www.academia.edu/7281904/The_Origin_of_the_Caland_System_and_the_Typology_of_Adjectives


In it, she gives a lot of detail and documentation, and I think the documented forms fit my explanation as well as they do hers.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Ember Wednesday of Advent
Wednesday after Gaudete Sunday
16-XII-2015

Friday, December 11, 2015

Discussion de Proto-Langue Réelle ou Non, approfondie par référence à Ruhlen


1) Logothètes à nos mesures, 2a) Le PIE, a-t-il existé?, 2b) Discussion de Proto-Langue Réelle ou Non, approfondie par référence à Ruhlen, 3) Mythologie Nordique - indo-européenne ou proche-orientale? Transmission par Odin?, 4) Corrigeant arte sur Apfel, Pomme, Mela

[En discutant le système n-/m- des langues amérindiennes:] Il est bien connu en linguistique que les pronoms ne sont presque jamais empruntés ; et ces emprunts qui, selon les américanistes, se seraient effectués pêle-mêle entre des nombreux groupes différents, seraient un cas sans précédent dans toute la littérature linguistique [...] Pour d'autres critiques, ces pronoms se seraient diffusés à travers les Amériques après que les différents peuples aient déjà occupé l'Amérique du Nord comme du Sud. Mais, là encore, ce genre de diffusion de pronoms est un phénomène inconnu en linguistique.

Merrit Ruhlen, L'origine des langues, pp. 103 s.


Quand une chose est bien connue, il vaut la peine d'y jeter encore un œil. Parfois elle est fausse, parfois elle est beaucoup plus vraie que supposée, généralement.

Les pronoms ne se ressemblent pas partout, Meillet (cité autre part) avait tort (et son observation aurait encore invalidé le groupe indo-européen, simplement comme groupe, si elle avait été vraie), sauf dans l'aspect beaucoup plus banal de brièveté, et même là le Japonais actuel fait exception. Entre indo-européen et finno-ougrien, soit il y a origine commune (qui exclut les langues amérindiennes, les langues afro-asiatiques, les langues khoïsanes, j'imagine aussi), soit il y a eu, précisément, diffusion.

Imaginez que vivent en endroit étroit la totalité (au moins apperçue) de deux groupes linguistiques. L'un a le système m-/t- (moi, toi, mich, dich, minä, sinä ...), l'autre a le système n-/m- (typique des langues amérindiennes - les indigènes sauf esquimeaux et na dene). Le cas est hypothétique, mais le résultat prévisible serait que les deux finissent en adoptant un système (tant que je sache d'ailleurs non-existant) de ** n-/t-, avec élimination du m- ambigu entre les langues.

Ce qui pourrait empêcher l'un ou l'autre de le faire est le fait d'avoir d'autres voisins avec qui on partage déjà le même système pronominal. Là, on tendrait sans doute à conserver le sien (voisins dans le temps comme littérature du passé y est pour quelque chose aussi).

Dans le cas de deux langues partageant le même système (et tendant donc à le conserver) vivant ensemble avec deux autre langues ne le partageant pas et ne partageant pas non plus un autre système commune à elles, celles-ci tendraient à effacer leurs systèmes en faveur du système déjà partagé entre deux, du système qui pourrait prétendre à un statut pour ainsi dire κοινη, et encore davantage s'il est partagé déjà par plusieurs. Avec, aussi dans ce cas, les mêmes observations sur les facteurs capables de conserver un système en cas du non-isolation.

Est-ce que indo-européen et le finno-ougrien ont eu une aire géographique commune? Oui, si le nesili (ou hethite) est indo-européen et si le hattili (ou le hattique) est finno-ougrien. Encore une fois oui, si l'italique et le celte du côté indo-européen et les langues dites tyrséniennes sont réellement finno-ougriennes, plus précisément du très vieux hongrois ou très apparentées.

Est-ce que le latin, le grec et le sanskrit ou une forme encore plus vieille de l'aryen ont partagé le même aire? Dans le cas que les italiques aient été originaires de Grèce (voir l'Énéide selon le résumé pour cet aspect donné par notre auteur - je ne connais pas l'endroit précis, mais j'imagine sans difficulté la seconde partie, les chants VII - XII), assez certainement oui, alors ça serait le monde grec. Car la langue du linéar A, parlée sur Crète avant le grec, semble avoir été aryenne, et "Mont Ida" semble avoir été "Mont Indra". Donc, le latin part de la Grèce vers l'Italie, les langues aryennes de Crète vers l'Est ... Madan aurait alors emprunté sa langue aux Caphthorim. (Hmmm?) Et cette aire est toute proche de l'aire où se sont rencontrés le nesili et le hattili. Toute proche du nesili.

Des langues indo-européennes, le nesili, le gothique, et avec contamination peut-être aussi le celte et le slave, partagent la forme fenno-ugrienne ou altaïque pour "père". Pour nesili "attas", pour gothique "atta", (à côté de "faðar" qui avait plutôt la nuance "papa"), c'est évident (quoique pour gothique on pourrait dire que l'emprunt du hunnique serait une possibilité).

Pour le celtique, l'explication courante est que *patéér ait perdu le p- comme tous les autres mots et fait du éé un î pour aboutir à un proto-celtique probable *atîr assez proche du vieil-irlandais athair. Mais on peut également soupçonner que cet atéér ou atîr ait été une contamination entre (pa)téér et at(a). Ensuite ce mot aurait été le début d'une perte de p- initial dans les mots que le celte prends de l'indo-européen - c'est à dire du vocabulaire que le celte aura, avant la perte du voisinage, commencé à partager entre lui-même et les autres langues qui sont comptées dans ce groupe, de quelle-conque le mots ait originé. Prenons le mot "ucht", il a pu commencer en celtique comme "*p@ktos", être emprunté en italique comme "pektos" (pectus en latin) et aboutir dans la langue d'origine comme *p@ktos > *@ktos > *uktos > ucht, PARCE QUE:

*patéér : *atîr = *p(e?)ktos : *@ktos

et ainsi de suite. Ou originer en italique, comme *pektos, et être emprunté comme *uktos selon exactement la même analogie.

Et pour italique *pibit (latin attesté "bibit") et celtique *ibit (vieil irlandais "ibid"), de même, quelle que soit la langue d'où vient le mot. C'est même possible que le mot est d'origine celtique et que le p- ait été ajouté en analogie avec *patéér en contraste avec *atîr.

Peu importe si l'expression "high brow" vient de Martha's vinyard ou autre part, là il va être prononcé avec diphthongues débutant en @ (@y, @w), ailleurs il va être prononcé avec diphthongues commençant avec un a plutôt classique, tant que le rapport entre les dialectes est clair pour les deux parleurs.

Pour le slave, il pourrait s'agir d'une double subsitution.

*Patéér analysé comme pa-téér, morphème de paternité échangé en racine hongroise atya et morphème de nomen agentis échangé en -ek. Pa-téér donc calqué comme *aty-ek (dont ojciec etc.). Pour *mâ-téér, on aura aussi coupé mât-éér avec une substitution juste partielle, mat-(e)ka, la forme féminine pour ces nomina agentis.

Qu'il s'agisse de noms de paternité ou de pronoms ... dans les deux cas, il s'agit des conceptes dont la précision importe et qui ne sont pas en soi visibles. On ne peut pas pointer un père de doigt, pour quelqu'un qui ne connaît pas la famille, et dire le mot pour père, car on pourrait vouloir dire "homme" ou "grandpère" ou ... vous voyez. Là, comme dans les pronoms, un système qui transcende les frontières linguistiques est pratique. D'où la forte possibilité qu'il ait été adopté comme tel, pour cette raison.

Je suis profondément d'accord avec Merritt Ruhlen, que les similitudes entre langues ne s'arrêtent pas sur le niveau indo-européen. Le désaccord est celui-ci : en évolutionniste, il prétend que la raison en est une proto-langue encore plus vieille que le proto-indo-européen, qui remonterait, celle commune entre indo-européen et finno-ougrien-avec-altaïque à encore une autre proto-langue encore plus vieille (et l'indo-européen lui-même remonterait déjà à vers 3000 ou 4000 av. J.-Chr.!), ce qui contredit assez nettement la chronologie biblique et en plus rend la punition miraculeuse à Babel superflue.

Moi, je me range dessus, comme pour l'indo-européen, avec Troubetskoï. L'unité indo-européenne et à plus forte raison celle entre indo-européen et ouralien est de la même nature que l'unité balcanique. Sprachbund. Et si on m'objecte que le phénomène de Sprachbund sur le Balkan n'a pas abouti à éliminer les différences de système pronominel entre roman, grec, slave, albanais et turc, je réponds que ces langues ont toutes des modèles par quelque forme de voisinage hors le Balkan pour retenir leur système pronominal.

Pour les Amériques, les langues hormis le groupe na dene et l'esquimeau-aleutique doivent avoir pris leur système pronominel bien avant de se répandre - quand elles étaient soit voisines, soit une seule langue. On n'a pas repéré lequel ou lesquels des petit-fils de Noé qui est l'ancêtre de ces peuples.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre-Paris X
Pape St Damase I, Confesseur
11-XII-2015

PS, on a d'ailleurs trouvé "atir" en gaulois. La seule raison donc de retenir l'astérisque avant *atîr est de savoir si le i en gaulois était long (alors, attesté) ou bref (alors reconstruit derrière "atir")./HGL

PPS, autres corrections : "vieil irlandais athair" ... non, c'est irlandais moderne, en vieil irlandais c'était athir; et "et son observation aurait encore invalidé le groupe indo-européen, simplement comme groupe, si elle avait été vraie", c'est à dire quant à ce dans l'argument qui est des pronoms. Il y a d'autres aspects de l'argument que son observation n'aurait pas invalidé, même si vraie au-delà de la brièveté./HGL

Monday, December 7, 2015

Pyramide de Chéops - prouve-t-elle la précession ou non?

C'est à dire que le hazard seul a promu l'étoile α de la constellation de la Petite Ourse à l'honneur d'être l'"étoile polaire". Aujourd'hui et pour deux ou trois siècles encore, le prolongement de l'axe terrestre perce le ciel dans ses parages. Mais il n'en sera plus de même dans quelques milliers d'années, comme il n'en était pas de même au temps des anciens Égyptiens, du pithécannthrope ou du diplodocus. Le cercle de précession tracé en tirets (figure 11) représente, si l'on veut un cadran d'horloge gradué de 0 à 25 800 ans, ou les divisions sont marquées par les étoiles. De nos jours, l'aiguille pointe α Petite OUrse : il y a 4 500 ans elle pointait α Dragon. Il y a 4 500 ans : c'était l'époque où le pharaon Chéops bâtissait la grande Pyramide, et les constructeurs, en même temps astronomes habiles, eurent soin de ménager, dans l'édifice, une galérie inclinée, braguée exactement sur la Polaire de ce temps là, α Dragon.

pp. 69 - 70
Pierre Rousseau
L'Astronomie
À la découverte de nouveaux mondes.


Attention ... la galérie pointait α Dragon alors et pointe donc α Petite Ourse maintenant, puisque la Terre a changé direction de l'axe, comme une toupie?

Dans ce cas, comment savoir, par les Égyptiens, que l'étoile polaire de ce temps était α Dragon? Si elle était α Petite Ourse comme aujourd'hui, et ils bâtissaient la galérie pour pointer α Petite Ourse alors, également, tant que le pôle pointe α Petite Ourse, la galérie pointera α Petite Ourse.

Autre possibilité ... la galérie pointe α Dragon maintenant ... et avec la précession, elle pointait où à l'époque? Si l'étoile polaire d'alors était α Dragon, elle a dû pointer vers une autre étoile à l'époque. Et c'est alors soit un hazard, soit une connaissance très précise de la précession qui fait qu'elle pointe α Dragon maintenant.

Ou alors, elle pointe α Dragon maintenant, puisqu'elle pointait α Dragon à l'époque ... et donc, l'étoile polaire était à l'époque aussi α Petite Ourse - quoi qu'en pensaient les Égyptiens.

Intéressant que cette α Dragon est une étoile très au nord. Ça nous laisse peut-être mieux comprendre une phrase comme

ab aquilone pandetur malum supra terram

Pardon, je récherche en drbo.org et je trouve:

Jeremias (Jeremiah) 1:14
Et dixit Dominus ad me: Ab aquilone pandetur malum super omnes habitatores terrae

Les Égyptiens qui bâtissaient cette galérie ont pu le pointer vers α Dragon, non pas parce qu'elle était étoile polaire, mais plutôt parce que'lle représentait Le Dragon et ils étaient draconolâtres.

Il est aussi possibles que d'autres monuments ont été "aquiloniés" d'après α Dragon ou Véga ou δ Cygne ou autres choses non pas par exactitude du nord, mais par symbolique ou répérabilité. Par exemple, si une de ces étoiles brille plus clairement que α Petite Ourse, ce que je pense est le cas avec Véga, on fait avec ses vacillations autour et on ignore α Petite Ourse (ou la trouve en référence à cette autre) comme moins répérable ... si elle est répérable à l'œil nu, c'est dans notre culture grâce à sa place pointée par La Grande Casserole (qui aussi est en dehors d'elle).

Donc, s'il y a eu d'autres raisons que la position en étoile polaire pour viser par on architecture à α Dragon ou quoi que ce soit (je me souviens que Michael Tellinger avait sa raison "astrochronologique" pour sa datation à 100 000 ans de certains structures en Afrique du Sud), α Petite Ourse a bien pu être déjà l'étoile polaire et l'argument d'architecture ancienne ne prouve rien en termes de précession.

Ça n'est pas une preuve qu'elle n'existe pas (quoique pour l'instant je n'ai pas une idée très détaillée comment la défendre en termes géocentriques, sauf l'idée toute générale que l'explication angélique pour les mouvements rétrogrades des planètes, les mouvements dite d'aberration et de parallaxe annuelle, et des nutations - c'est comme ça qu'on dit wobble, non? - suffisent aussi pour celle des précessions, à supposer qu'elles existent), ni même qu'elle ne soit pas prouvée autrement.

Car le livre n'est pas très généreuse en preuves. Sur la page 45, après avoir cité les désaccords de Mercier en 1805 et d'Édouard Drumont en 1904, l'auteur nous dit:

Passons sur ces faintaisies d'ignorants, simplement destinées à faire parler d'eux. En cette seconde moitié du XXe siècle, et dans un livre d'astronomie, nous ne perdons pas notre temps, ni celui de nos lecteurs, à démontrer le mouvement de la Terre.


Après quoi il nous dit que chacun "sait" que l'empirie directe des observations faites d'une ou faites comme d'une Terre fixe n'est que l'apparence des mouvements de cette Terre non fixe ... on n'a pas le temps, chacun sait ... c'est la culture scientifique popularisée à la française ! *

Pour un scientifique ou un journaliste de sciences un peu plus honnête ou qui prenne sa matière plus au sérieux, un livre d'astronomie** serait précisemment LE lieu d'aborder les preuves, s'il y en avait ou celles qu'on se considère avoir, plutôt, pour les mouvements de Terre condamnés comme erronés et pour l'un comme hérétique en 1633.

Quidam : "Oh ça ... pas le temps, je vais au Bataclan pour écouter Eagles of Death Metal"

Ou quelque chose comme ça. Je pense qu'on était épargnés de ses Eagles of Daeth Metal comme des massacreurs de leurs fans en région parisienne à l'époque de Pierre Rousseau. Mais déjà, on n'avait pas le temps.

J'ai quant à moi-même fréquenté des profs de science et lu des livres par auteurs dont les deux ont eu le temps d'expliquer les prétendues preuves, de manière que j'ai pu les analyser et refuter. Mais ce n'étaient pas des français.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Universitaire
de Nanterre-Paris X
Veille de la Nativité de la
Veille de l'Immaculée Conception de la
Bienheureuse Vierge Marie
7-XII-2015

*Et on parlait aussi davantage de pithécanthrope que d'homme de Java, malgré le fait que les trouvailles plus complètes étaient assez humains et l'idée du pithécanthrope était venu par une comparaison à de très peu de restes - une molaire, une calotte de crâne, et un fémur. ** Voir le titre!

Someone Suggested, Maliciously, Lincoln was Murdered for the "Very Dark Cloud" Anti-Catholic Talk


1) Is It Presentism to Condemn the Racialism of Woodrow Wilson?, 2) Someone Suggested, Maliciously, Lincoln was Murdered for the "Very Dark Cloud" Anti-Catholic Talk

"There is a fact which is too much ignored by the American people, and with which I am acquainted only since I became President; it is that the best, the leading families of the South have received their education in great part, if not in whole, from the Jesuits and the nuns."

In other words, he did not gather it in his own right as explorer of reality, he was told by someone he trusted.

"Hence those degrading principles of slavery, pride, cruelty, which are as a second nature among so many of those people. Hence that strange want of fair play, humanity; that implacable hatred against the ideas of equality and liberty as we find them in the Gospel of Christ."

Was he really that much Anti-South?

Also, I am very much afraid he overdoes the portion of Jesuit and Nun teachers among Southron Aristocracy. The main influence was Calvinism, as with Generals Lee (who was kind to his slaves and freed them all antebellum) and Stonewall Jackson.

"You do not ignore that the first settlers of Louisiana, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, South California and Missouri were Roman Catholics, and that their first teachers were Jesuits"

In Louisiana, though slaves were abundant, they were better treated than elsewhere. For instance, a freed man of colour was, mostly, under France, entitled to wear a pistol. The exception, I recall, was during the period of Regency or possibly personal reign of Louis XV. That is, worst French behaviour to blacks of Louisiana was not inspired by Catholicism, but by Enlightenment, which was a reaction against Catholicism. And also a product of Freemasonry.

In Texas, the slavery came with the Calvinists who led to its secession from Mexico. Santa Ana was as much antislavery as Abe Lincoln.

Florida, New Mexico and South California were not very actively involved in slavery, as far as I know (possibly wrong about just Florida), though they took the side of secession.

"As I told you before, it is to Popery that we owe this terrible civil war. I would have laughed at the man who would have told me that before I became the President. But Professor Morse has opened my eyes on that subject. And now I see that mystery; I understand that engineering of hell which, though not seen or even suspected by the country, is putting in motion the large, heavy, and noisy wheels of the state cars of the Southern Confederacy. Our people is not yet ready to learn and believe those things, and perhaps it is not the proper time to initiate them to those dark mysteries of hell; it would throw oil on a fire which is already sufficiently destructive. You are almost the only one with whom I speak freely on that subject."

  • 1) If the quote is genuine, Abe was overtrusting the expertise of Professor Morse;

  • 2) If the quote is genuine, Abe was not saying this in a speech, but in a private conversation. With some confidant. Which means his words carry far less responsability on his part than the JFK speech against insiders, which was really a speech.

  • 3) If the quote is genuine, I would like to know if Professor Morse was a Calvinist or a Freemason.


Will try to check that anyway, and go by wikipedia for Morse code. Then its inventor. Hah, it worked! Here:

"Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of the Morse code, and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy."

Since he lived longer than Abe Lincoln and since he was arguably already famous for the Morse Code well more than a decade before he could have met Abe, this would probably be him.

"Samuel F. B. Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the first child of the pastor Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826), who was also a geographer, and his wife Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese (1766–1828).[1] His father was a great preacher of the Calvinist faith and supporter of the American Federalist party. He thought it helped preserve Puritan traditions (strict observance of Sabbath, among other things), and believed in the Federalist support of an alliance with Britain and a strong central government. Morse strongly believed in education within a Federalist framework, alongside the instillation of Calvinist virtues, morals and prayers for his first son."

OK, Morse had a strong Calvinist bias. At least as strong as what Tolkien called C. S. Lewis' Ulsterior motives (not a misspelling, but a pun intended) for non-conversion to Catholicism and probably much stronger. C. S. Lewis had a Catholic friend (namely Tolkien) and never spoke out harshly against Catholicism. VERY different kind of Protestant compared to Morse.

"After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Samuel Morse went on to Yale College to receive instruction in the subjects of religious philosophy, mathematics and science of horses. ..."

Was the subject religious philosophy at YALE (New England, Connecticut, between Plymouth Rock and New York, though closer to latter), back in 19th Century, taught in a manner fair to Catholics or in a manner unfair to Catholics?

Anyone somewhat familiar with facts will see one overwhelming probability.

"While at Yale, he attended lectures on electricity from Benjamin Silliman and Jeremiah Day, and was a member of the Society of Brothers in Unity. He supported himself by painting. In 1810, he graduated from Yale with Phi Beta Kappa honors."

Phi Beta Kappa, Brothers in Unity, the latter is a secret society, the former is short for Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης or in Latin letters Philosophia Biou Cybernētēs, which is not a Catholic sentiment, and it is a society.

So, Morse was in company which was probably very Anti-Catholic.

"Morse was a leader in the anti-Catholic and anti-immigration movement of the mid-19th century. In 1836, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York under the anti-immigrant Nativist Party's banner, receiving only 1496 votes. When Morse visited Rome, he allegedly refused to take his hat off in the presence of the Pope.

"Morse worked to unite Protestants against Catholic institutions (including schools), wanted to forbid Catholics from holding public office, and promoted changing immigration laws to limit immigration from Catholic countries. On this topic, he wrote, "We must first stop the leak in the ship through which muddy waters from without threaten to sink us."

"He wrote numerous letters to the New York Observer (his brother Sidney was the editor at the time) urging people to fight the perceived Catholic menace. These were widely reprinted in other newspapers. Among other claims, he believed that the Austrian government and Catholic aid organizations were subsidizing Catholic immigration to the United States in order to gain control of the country."

In other words, Morse was an Anti-Catholic hot head and he was probably somewhat influential in making US support Benito Juarez against Emperor Maximilian.

As he was against Catholic schools, this does not witness of a great love of freedom in himself. It is a bit like Commies arguing against Christian homeschooling liberties (and this against both Calvinists and Catholics).

I must admit I had from the heading "marriages" - plural - suspected he was a bigamist by divorce, no he was an honest widower, as the article stands now, when wooing the second bride.

But what I do find in Morse is really bias enough and more than enough to discredit the possible advice he gave to Lincoln, before this man possibly said the above quoted words to some confidant in private.

It is even possible secret societies who were disappointed with Lincoln not keeping up the Catholic stance, when he got a chance to get personal acquaintance could be behind the assassination.

In order for Lincoln to have been assassinated for the "very dark cloud speech", it would have had to been publically known, or his confidant would have had to be spying for the Vatican. It was, as said, a talk in private to a confidant.

In order for Lincoln to have been assassinated for not living up to it, the confidant does not totally need to have been a spy for secret societies, the talk does not need to have been known. But the fact it was ultimately known (if genuine!) might argue the confidant was either that or a very benighted man if thinking that speech was why he was killed.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Vigil of the Nativity
Vigil of the Immaculate Conception
of Our Lady, the BV Mary
7-XII-2015

Quoted works on which I commented:

My Gospel Workers : I see a very dark cloud on our horizon. And that dark cloud is coming from Rome – Abraham Lincoln
http://mygospelworkers.org/mgwministry/i-see-a-very-dark-cloud-on-our-horizon-and-that-dark-cloud-is-coming-from-rome-abraham-lincoln/


The Wickipeejuh : Samuel Morse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morse

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Lesseps fut aussi à La Pérouse


1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Les âges des ancêtres DU Robespierre - et d'autres! ; 2) Sur les Dévanceurs de Marie-Antoinette ; 3) Et les ancêtres du roi martyr? Regardons aussi la parité entre les sexes ... ou même le privilège féminin ; 4) musicalia : Les Musiciens ; 5) Recipes from Home and Abroad : Les artistes (peintres, graveurs ...) - avec un peu de patrons ou mécènes et d'autres connexes ; 6) New blog on the kid : Chirurgiens et surtout Sage-femmes ; 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : L’Académie et entourages ; 8) Et le Moyen Âge? Hormis royautés ; 9) Moyen Âge, Royautés ; 10) La Lettre A d'une Encyclopédie ; 11) Monge et Jaurès - démographie ; 12) Lesseps fut aussi à La Pérouse

Ceux qui meurent à l'expédition La Pérouse ne peuvent pas être très indicatifs en soi des expectations de vie.

Mais leurs proches, qui n'y étaient pas, parfois oui.

Paul Antoine Marie Fleuriot, vicomte de Langle, né le 1er août 1744 au château de Kerlouët à Quemper-Guézennec, Côtes-d'Armor et décédé le 11 décembre 1787, à Tutuila, Maouna (Îles Samoa),

87 - 44 = 43 ans

Il est le fils de Jean Sébastien Fleuriot, comte de Langle (1712-1781) et de Marie Jeanne de La Monneraye (1707-1796). De cette union naissent deux fils et quatre filles. Son frère aîné, Jean Charles Fleuriot, comte de Langle (1738-1809) est capitaine au Régiment Royal-Étranger de cavalerie.

81 - 12 = 69 ans
96 - 7 = 89 ans
109 - 38 = 71 ans

Certains, pourtant, sont à l'expédition La Pérouse et n'y meurent pas:

1) Jean Baptiste Barthélemy de Lesseps
Né le 27 janvier 1766 - Sète (Cette)
Décédé le 6 avril 1834 - Lisbonne, Portugal
À l'âge de 68 ans

Et de celui, j'ai recensé tellement de famille, que je compte même Fleuriot, parce que son décès jeune n'affectent plus tellement la totalité.

2) Martin de Lesseps 1730-1807
3) Anna Caizergues 1730-1823
2/3) Marié le 17 juin 1757, Carthagène, Espagne, avec Anna Caizergues 1730-1823, dont

2.1 [Barthélemy 1766-1834]*
2.2 Lise 1769-1840
2.3 Mathieu 1774-1832

4) Pierre de Lesseps 1690-1759
5) Catherine Fourcade 1690-1760
4/5) Marié le 27 janvier 1715, Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), avec Catherine Fourcade 1690-1760, dont

4.1 Dominique 1715-1794
4.2 Pierre 1716
4.3 Marie 1717-1722
4.4 Arnaud 1719-1726
4.5 Jean-Barthélémy 1720-1795
4.6 Marcel 1720-1730
4.7 Jean-Pierre 1721-1721
4.8 Catherine 1721-1795
4.9 Gracy 1725-1791
4.10 Plaisance 1727-1735
4.11 Michel 1729-1801
4.12 = 2 [Martin 1730-1807]
4.13 Jeanne Marie 1733-1776
4.14 Etiennette 1735-1781

6) Jacques Caizergues
7) Françoise Pioch

8) Bertrand Lesseps 1649 - 1708
9) Louise Fisson 1654 - 1690
8/9) Marié le 18 avril 1675, Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), avec Louise Fisson 1654-1690, dont

8a.1 Marie 1676-1695
8a.2 Pierre 1678-1688
8a.3 Bertrand 1679-1704/
8a.4 Jean 1682-1742
8a.5 Gracian 1683-1683
8a.6 Plaisance 1685-ca 1731
8a.7 Jean-Pierre 1687
8a.8 = 4 [Pierre de Lesseps 1690-1759]

8/b)Marié en 1690 avec Marie Dumon 1657-1729

10) Jean Fourcade 1643-1702
11) Marie du Galart 1657-1746
10/11 et avant:

Marié le 4 août 1665, Bayonne, 64, avec Jeanne de Labaig 1646, dont

10a.1 Jean-Pierre 1669-1748
10a.2 Arnaud 1673-1743

Marié le 14 juin 1688, Bayonne, Pyrénées Atlantiques, avec Marie du Galart 1657-1746, dont

10b.3 Marie 1689-1772
10b.4 = 5 [Catherine 1690-1760]

12 - 15 inconnus

16) Jehan Lesseps 1621-1677
17) Agné Proizet +1649/
16/17 et après:

Marié en 1645 avec Agné Proizet +1649/, dont

16a.1 = 8 [Bertrand 1649-1708]

Marié avec Catherine Proizet, dont

16b.2 Agné 1650-?
16b.3 Bertrand 1653-?
16b.4 Marie 1655 Mariée en 1674 avec Pierre Lacarrière
16b.5 Marie 1656-1707 Mariée en 1681 avec Pierre Duzan
16b.6 Pierre 1660-1721 Marié le 19 avril 1694, Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), avec Jeanne de Labat +1753, dont
16b.7 Marie 1662 Mariée avec Jean Ducan

18) Pierre Fisson 1621
19) Marie Veillet ca 1625

20) Paul Fourcade +1665/
21) Jeanne de Marque ca 1610-/1665

22 - 31, je n'ai pas charché

32) Esteben Lesseps ca 1554-1648
33) Marie Gaillat
34) Bertrand Proizet
35) inconnue

36) Jean Fisson
37) Jeannette de Labaritz
38) Pierre de Veillet, sieur de l'Île du Broc ca 1575-1638
39) Jeanne de Goubert

40) Arnaut de Forcade /1637
41) Jeanne de Lafargue
42) Jean de Marque, seigneur d'Ussau
43) Jeanne de Lafargue (homonyme de 41)

44 à 63, je n'ai pas cherché

64) Bertrand Lesseps ca 1530-ca 1597
65) Marguerite Raty
64/65) Marié avec Marguerite Raty, dont

64.1 = 32 [Esteben ca 1554-1648]
64.2 Jehan +1647/ deux mariages
64.3 Augier +1652/ aussi marié

66) Pierre Gaillat
67) Jehanne Todor

Retournons à 1, Barthélémy, Marié le 16 septembre 1793, Versailles, avec 1) Rose Catherine Cécile Lucie Ruffin, dont:

1.1 Aimée 1794-? Mariée le 25 avril 1822, Lisbonne, avec Pierre Blanchet
1.2 Fortunée 1798-1845 Mariée le 10 janvier 1820, Lisbonne (Portugal), avec Charles de Lagau 1796-1870, dont Fortunée de Lagau Née entre 1822 et 1837, Mariée après 1859 avec Eugène Fouques Duparc 1811-1886, dont

1.2.1.1 Marie 1860-1926 Mariée le 23 juin 1886, Paris 8e, avec René Bosseront d'Anglade 1853-1942, dont ??
1.2.1.2 Albert 1863 marié deux fois, dont la seconde en 1900

1.3 Virginie 1801-1876
1.4 Charles 1807-?
1.5 Hortense 1809 Née le 6 avril 1809 - St-Pétersbourg (!) Mariée le 6 avril 1829 avec Antoine-Aimé Blachette 1797-1875, dont

1.5.1 Jean Baptiste Léon 1834 Marié le 12 juin 1861, Marseille, 13, avec Camille Catherine Eugénie Estrangin 1840, dont ...
1.5.2 Hortense 1836 Mariée le 7 mai 1862, Lyon (Rhône), avec Louis Jean Baptiste d'Aurelle de Paladines 1804-1877, dont ...

1.6 Céleste 1810-?
1.7 Julie 1812 Mariée avec x x
1.8 Edmond-Prosper 1815-1868 Il entra très tôt au département des Affaires étrangères. Il fut consul de France à Alep en 1848, consul général de France à Beyrouth en 1853, à Lima (Pérou) en 1859 où il mourut de la fièvre jaune en 1868.

Si Barthélémy est 1, l'est également son épouse, 1) Rose Catherine Cécile Lucie Ruffin , parents:

2) Pierre Ruffin 1742-1824
3) Françoise Stefanelli

PR, fils de:

4) Charles Thomas Antoine Ruffin ca 1697-1752/
5) Catherine Rose Vert
4/5) CTAR : Marié avec Catherine Rose Vert, dont

4.1 Joseph Ignace ca 1728-1764/ (décédé après 1764!)
4.2 François /1730-1764/ (dito)
4.3 = 2 [Pierre 1742-1824]
4.4 Angel Thomas /1747-1753 (né avant 1747, Il est décédé en mer en 1753 alors qu'il se rendait à Salonique.)
4.5 Mariette Mariée avec Jean-François Jullien

PR: Marié le 20 octobre 1773, Constantinople, paroisse Sainte-Marie Draperis, avec Françoise Stefanelli, dont

2.1 = 1 [Rose Catherine Cécile Lucie]
2.2 Thomas 1775-1825 Pour son décès et ceux de ses enfants, voir Etat-civil des Français à Constantinople (MAE, quai d'Orsay). Marié avec Euphémie Bérillon, dont

2.2.1 Marie Euphémie Célestine 1810
2.2.2 Françoise Aline 1811
2.2.3 Delphine Françoise Pierrette 1813

2.3 Françoise Jeanne Anastasie 1781

Les récensés se répartissent, sauf ceux dont l'âge au décès est inconnu en:

H :
43|| 50 53 55 56 58 |59/59| 60 61 63 67 68 ||69|| 69 70 71 72 74 |75/75| 77 78 79 79 82 ||94

F :
19|| 36 43 46 |46| 47 66 66 ||70|| 71 72 74 |75| 83 89 89 ||93

E :
0| 0 5 |7| 8 10 |10

H/F :
19|| 36 43 43 46 46 47 50 53 55 |56/58| 59 59 60 61 63 66 66 67 68 ||69/69|| 70 70 71 71 72 72 74 74 75 |75/75| 77 78 79 79 82 83 89 89 93 ||94

H/F/E :
0|| 0 5 7 8 10 10 19 36 43 43 46 |46/47| 50 53 55 56 58 59 59 60 61 63 66 ||66|| 67 68 69 69 70 70 71 71 72 72 74 |74/75| 75 75 77 78 79 79 82 83 89 89 93 ||94

Donc, minimum pour H, 43, pour femmes, 19, pour les deux 19. Maximum pour hommes 94, pour femmes 93, pour les deux 94.

Pour enfants la gamme est de décédé l'année de la naissance à 10 ans.

Médiane, pour hommes 69 ans, pour femmes 70 ans, pour les deux 69 ans, pour enfants, 7 ans, en les comptant avec les adultes, la médiane totale tombe à 66.

Quartile basse pour hommes 59 ans, pour femmes 46 ans, pour les deux ensemble entre 56 et 58 ans, et en comptant les enfants ça tombe à 46 à 47 ans.

Quartile haute pour hommes 75 ans, pour femmes 75 ans, pour les deux ensemble, 75 ans, et si on compte les enfants, ça tombe à entre 74 et 75 ans.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre-Paris X
St Sosthène**
28-XI-2015

* Je combine ici la numération de Sosa avec celle d'Aboville. 2.2 Thomas est deuxième fils (Aboville) de 2 Martin de Lesseps qui est père (Sosa-Stradonitz) de notre 1 masculin, de Barthélémy de Lesseps.

** Apud Corinthum natalis sancti Sosthenis, ex beati Pauli Apostoli discipulis; cujus mentionem facit idem Apostolus Corinthiis scribens. Ipse autem Sosthenes, ex principe Synagogae conversus ad Christum, fidei suae primordia, ante Gallionem Proconsulem acriter verberatus, praeclaro initio consecravit.

Is It Presentism to Condemn the Racialism of Woodrow Wilson?


[1) Is It Presentism to Condemn the Racialism of Woodrow Wilson?, 2) Someone Suggested, Maliciously, Lincoln was Murdered for the "Very Dark Cloud" Anti-Catholic Talk]

Actually, not.

There was an antiracialist morality around in his day too. It was Catholic.

Woodrow Wilson was culpable of:

  • Ending Austro-Hungarian Empire in favour of a Nationalism (all nationalisms were OK except the German one, and even that one obtained a united Germany, against Clémeanceau, reduced but not divided borders as per Prusso-German ones);
  • Sending Trotski to Russia where he helped to end Czarism (despite being the ally of the Czar);
  • Supporting the Anticlerical Mexican Revolution;
  • Racialism;
  • Suppressing antidraft activists;
  • Supporting Women's Suffrage;
  • Possibly the 16th Amendment should be held against him too;


... but there is a good point:

  • Fighting the Big Corporations, Anti-Trust Laws.


Would all the points where I disagree with Wilson have been points where he found support in the morality of his time?

No, they are points in which he found support in PROGRESSIVE morality of his time.

The point where they were good reactionaries (Brandeis, nominated by Wilson, was "Progressive Party" and Anti-Trust) does not mean that there were no point where they were the opposite, fiddling around with moral questions. Playing the school masters to their ancestors and to the ancestors of other people.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Sosthenes
28-XI-2015

Apud Corinthum natalis sancti Sosthenis, ex beati Pauli Apostoli discipulis; cujus mentionem facit idem Apostolus Corinthiis scribens. Ipse autem Sosthenes, ex principe Synagogae conversus ad Christum, fidei suae primordia, ante Gallionem Proconsulem acriter verberatus, praeclaro initio consecravit.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Monge et Jaurès - démographie


1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Les âges des ancêtres DU Robespierre - et d'autres! ; 2) Sur les Dévanceurs de Marie-Antoinette ; 3) Et les ancêtres du roi martyr? Regardons aussi la parité entre les sexes ... ou même le privilège féminin ; 4) musicalia : Les Musiciens ; 5) Recipes from Home and Abroad : Les artistes (peintres, graveurs ...) - avec un peu de patrons ou mécènes et d'autres connexes ; 6) New blog on the kid : Chirurgiens et surtout Sage-femmes ; 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : L’Académie et entourages ; 8) Et le Moyen Âge? Hormis royautés ; 9) Moyen Âge, Royautés ; 10) La Lettre A d'une Encyclopédie ; 11) Monge et Jaurès - démographie ; 12) Lesseps fut aussi à La Pérouse

Je viens de lire deux numéros de La revue française de Généalogie, dont n° 211 avril-mai 2014 pour les Jaurès et probablement le dernier numéro pour les Monge.

D'abord les Monge:

 Jacques Monge
°ca 1718 à St Jeoire
† 17-09-1755
x 1744 Jeanne Rousseaux
† 05-06-1781
Marclan (marchand? oui!) forain en 1746, puis bâtonnier de la confrérie des merciers de Beaune, puis commerce d’étoffes. Propr. Demigny – La Chapelle (terre, prés, vignes).
Trois fils, I Gaspard, II Louis, III Jean

I Gaspard Monge
° 10-03-1746 [ou 9-V-1746] à Beaune (6 rue Couverte)
† 28-07-1818
x 12-06-1777 Marie Catherine Huard
Géomètre, mathématicien, professeur, ministre, sénateur. Ami intime de Napoléon Bonaparte et Joséphine. Membre de l'expédition scientifique d'Égypte.
Trois filles, 1 Jeanne-Charlotte Émilie, 2 Louise Françoise, 3 Adélaïde.

1 Jeanne-Charlotte Émilie Monge
° 07-03-1778
† 1867
Héritière de la maison natale de Beaune.
x 12-05-1795 Nicolas Marey
° 1760
† 1818

2 Louise Françoise Monge
° 30-06-1779
† 1874
x 01-11-1797 Josèphe Eschasseriaux

3 Adélaïde Monge
° 1780 - † 1783

II Louis Monge
° 11-04-1748
† 1827
Professeur de mathématiques de 1774 à 1776. Adjoint de son frère Gaspard à l'école de Mézières-Ardennes (1780-1781). Professeur de l'école militaire de Paris de 1781 à 1786. Membre de l'expédition de La Pérouse. Propriétaire à Demigny - La Chapelle.

III Jean Monge
° 1751 à Beaune
† 1813
Professeur de mathématique, de navigation, d'hydrographie. Consul de France à la Corogne de 1792 à 1795.

Vies H 37 58 |62| 72 79
Vies F 89 95
Vie E 3
Vies H/F 37 58 62 |72| 79 89 95
Vies H/F/E 3 37 58 |62/72| 79 89 95

Mariages H 26 31 35
Mariages F 18 23
Mariages H/F 18 23 |26| 31 35
Moyenne totale 24 ans 1/2
Moyenne H 30 ans 2/3
Moyenne F 20 ans 1/2
Écarts moyen 10 ans
Écart constaté 12 ans


Et ensuite les Jaurès et les mises ensemble:

Jacques Jaurès  Flauvette Besombes
° 11-03-1639

Guillaume Jaurès
° 07-07-1681
† 03-09-1711
 Marie Ribes

 
Jean Jaurès
°08-10-1690
x 20-02-1719
† 26-07-1758
 Catherine Mijoule
°30-04-1695
† 01-10-1769

 
Guillaume Jaurès
°17-07-1730
x 27-05-1751
† 03-07-1774
 Marguerite Saussol
° 28-06-1729
† 06-03-1803

 
Jean Pierre Alexis Jaurès
° 17-07-1760
x 08-06-1779
† 06-03-1828
 Marie Guibaud
°15-12-1760
† 29-08-1831

Deux fils, I Auguste et II ...

I) Auguste Jaurès
°27-10-1781
† 17-12-1806
 Marie Claire Adélaïde Catherine Louise Got
° 03-04-1783

 
Ici j'ai interrompu le copiage, je n'ai donc pas copié les dates de vie de leur fils Jean-Louis et ?, ni de son frère le père ou grandpère du très connu Jean Jaurès.

Vies H 44 |68| 68
Vies F 71 |74| 74
Vies H/F 44 68 |68/71| 74 74

Et ensemble avec les Monge:

Vies H 37 44 58 |62/68| 68 74 79
Vies F 71 74 |74| 89 95
Vies H/F 37 44 58 |62| 68 68 ||71|| 72 74 |74| 79 89 95
Vies H/F/E 3 37 44 |58| 62 68 ||68/71|| 72 74 |74| 79 89 95

La moyenne est à 58 ou presque 59 ans, elle est baissée par la mort d'un enfant et par celui de deux hommes morts tôt.

C'est obvie que le normal pour son expectation de vie ne tenait pas ceci en compte, mais visait plutôt 71.

Mariages H 19 21 25 29
avec les Monge 19 21 25 |26| 29 31 35
Mariages F 19 22 23 24
avec les Monge 18 19 |22/23| 23 24
Mariages H/F 18 19 19 |21| 22 23 ||23|| 24 25 |26| 29 31 35 (FHFHFFFFHHHHH)


Bon, ces longueurs de vies étaient dans une France préindustrielle, au moins pour les jeunesses, parce qu'en France la Révolution Industrielle ne débute qu'avec Louis Philippe, en 1830.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre U
St Virgil de Salzbourg
27-XI-2015

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Tolkien's Scouring of the Shire (Disagreeing with Plank)


1) Suppose ONE Single work by GKC had Inspired Lord of the Rings ...?, 2) In Defense of the Tom Bombadil Chapters, 3) Tolkien's Scouring of the Shire (Disagreeing with Plank)

In a collection work called A Tolkien Compass, 1975, I met a few decent comments, but also a rather bad one by one Robert Plank.

My primary interest is not in the literary value of Tolkien's work, that is declaring it good or bad.


Those who have a real interest in literary value have so not so much in declaring a work "good" or "bad", but in elucidating what kind of good or what kind of bad.

... in the same way that, as a psychiatric social worker, I would study a client's story about himself or one of his dreams.*


That Plank is a psychiatric social worker certainly explains why his comment is bad, but does not make it good.

In reading The Lord of the Rings**, you have probably noticed that "The Scouring of the Shire" is a separate and independent episode, a unit that pretty much stands by itself. Yet it is almost impossible to read with enjoyment and understanding, either alone or with the rest of the trilogy.


No, I have NOT noticed that, especially not the part about it's being almost impossible to read with enjoyment and understanding.

If Plank is the kind of man who cannot read it with enjoyment and undestanding, so much the worse for Plank, at least as far as Tolkien criticism is concerned, and he actually here admitted that perhaps he was not understanding it correctly.

If it was near impossible to read with understanding per se, it was so to him. But if it was so to him, perhaps it was NOT near impossible per se, but only due to his incapacities as a reader of that kind of statement.

Something which may be true about his "understanding" of his "clients" as well.

It is equally important that "The Scouring of the Shire" differs from other episodes in Tolkien's work in respect to the question of fantasy versus realism. The New York Times Book Review recently carried an article on paperbacks favoured by young readers. [Enumerates: Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Hesse's Steppenwolf, Herbert's Dune along with LotR] The reviewer describes the dreamlike quality of the works, their heros' unusual powers and the mixture of the real and the fantastic in these stories.


Confusion about genre vs ontology.

You have real vs invented (ontology). You also have within each ordinary vs. marvellous (genre). The marvellous is not obviously always invented (except on the prejudice of atheism: Gospels are marvellous enough, but we Christians will not agree with atheists they are invented). The ordinary is obviously NOT always real. Sherlock Holmes being invented is no more real than Gandalf. And Gandalf having marvellous powers is not what makes him invented, for he shares them with St Raphaël, of whom the book of Tobit has sth to say, and which happened for real.

But supposing I were wrong, supposing Gospels and Book of Tobit were invented (which I do not admit), even so, a writer who admits (on Plank's view presumably wrongly) this distinction between marvellous quality and fictive ontological status, as JRRT in fact did, would not have in general the kind of intention to be dreamlike when writing the marvellous that an atheist like Lord Dunsany or Lovecraft*** would have (there is even a short story Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath). A writer who, even if he were wrong in believing so, believed that the marvellous exists for real (and Tolkien did believe angels and demons do exist) would not be automatically off the realistic responsibilities while writing the marvellous.

Although this describes Tolkien's work in general it does not quite obviously function as a description of "The Scouring of the Shire." [LOOOOOOOOOONG enthusiasm over the fact that the chapter is "not fantasy".]


There are, in that sense, lots of other passages which, in that sense, are "not fantasy".

Everything (nearly) which goes on between Frodo, Sam and Gollum, from their meeting to the betrayal, is of extremely ordinary (critic's jargon: "realistic") quality. This is true of nearly all of Book IV. On the other hand, much of book III is equally devoid of "magic". Much, not all. The Silmarils Palantir at the end are clearly as much magic as technology. Internet? Well, how does it function without wires and connexions, just by the nature of the stones? How come it is locked to "one channel" (Sauron's)? How come Aragorn can unlock it for his purposes, not by skill as a hacker, but by strength of holy will (like an exorcist destroying the bad magic of some cursed object)?

And there are the ghosts too. Plus one could characterise ents as slightly paranormal. Burnham forest does not often take literal walks to Dunsinane.

But by and large, books III and IV are realistic fiction - and this purported expert on Tolkien criticism does not even know it. He thinks "The Scouring of the Shire" is unique in this respect.

In a geographical sense, of course, the chapter is fantasy, as much as Westmark series by Lloyd Alexander : Shire and Westmark are as hard to find on an accurate map of the world we travel in as Ruritania and Syldavia and Borduria. And harder than Narnia.°

Now of course, when I call "The Scouring of the Shire" a realistic story, I do not mean to imply that events are described exactly as they would happen in reality.


When we speak of realistic story, as opposed to documentary or docufiction, we speak of sth other than reality. We speak of a conditional, which certainly motivates the would, but while we are doing it, we are - on any rational view - out of the scope of exactitude.

A documentary can portray events exactly as they did happen in reality. A docufiction can portray events less exactly like what happened in reality - or more exactly.

But when we speak of fiction, we speak of hypothesis and therefore of non-reality and therefore of a realm from which exactitude is excluded.

However, I suspect Plank has a preconceived idea of how events happen in reality, and that his reading of the chapter reveals to him that Tolkien did not share it.

That MIGHT be the reason why he (and the kind of likes of himself he implicitly cited in my third quote - "you have probably noticed") did not find it easy to read with enjoyment and understanding in the first place.

Indeed, if he is a social worker of ANY kind (psychiatric or otherwise), he is involved in the kind of system which Tolkien describes as "gathering and sharing" and criticises as "does more gathering than sharing". Indeed, if he is a psychiatric, he lives off the "gathering" (that is, off tax money), but does no "sharing" (that is, he does not hand out money or even food stamps, he's just there to control the life of clients).

Perhaps not the best moral position from which to get the point of that chapter - unless you have the lucidity or humility (or both) to accept you are part of the butt end of a joke.°° But the passage goes on:

Tolkien gives us the essence of reality by altering many of its circumstances, especially by miniaturizing it. His story is a realistic parable of reality.


For once, I agree. I only think that is the case with lots of other passages, including frankly supernatural ones.

The political changes were not essentially constitutional changes. The laws have been perverted more than amended. The traditional offices have not been abolished, but new power is wielded by a new ruling group.


That also I agree on. While it isn't near to describing the Russian Revolution, from October 1917°°° to end of Civil War, it does describe, not miniaturised, but somewhat exaggerated, at least from Tolkien's view point, what happened in England after WW-II with Labour Party abolishing many old freedoms, but even more what had recently taken place in Eastern Europe West of Soviet Union, just after the War, in very quick successions of deft moves and sham legalities. One can argue this was also the case with Nazi Germany 1933. One can hardly argue it was what happened in Austria 1933 or in Spain 1936 - 39. Or in Portugal 1926 with Mendes Cabeçadas and Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa and Salazar.

The essantial political innovation is the rise of an unprecedented police force, headed by the chief Shirriff.


This however, reminds more of the Cheka than of early stages of Italian fascism. During the Matteotti trial, Il Duce was accused of having a Cheka, and he replied he had not a Cheka, but the Soviet Union had (alas, he was going to get a secret police somewhat later, but not yet while the Matteotti case was ongoing).

Democracy has been simply defined as "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Fascism is its antithesis. It is government of a clique, by a clique, against the people-like the government of the shire~ before the scouring.


It is a good definition, indeed, of a bad oligarchy. It is not a good description of all historical fascisms.

Communism at least starts out with a lofty ideal (whatever may become of it later) but the group that usurps power in the shire~ does not even pretend to idealism.


It pretends to efficacy, as did Communism under Five Year Plans. Communist idealism was, like Social Democratic one, an idealism of "gathering and sharing". And Saruman had given the idealist aspect of the Shire, back in his dialogue with Gandalf, when he took Gandalf captive - in a scene not without the marvellous.~~ The scene where he says Istari could rule men for their good - by their superior wisdom. Actually, it sounds a bit more like the idealism of UFO fans than the actual words of proto-Communists and proto-Socialists like Marx and Engels. However, many UFO fans now are also Communists, even look to UFO's as the salvation of Communism (which was to all purposes kind of killed in 1990), and the more humdrum idealism of "from each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs" is very closely echoed in the excuses for the "gathering and sharing" régime.

We also get Puritan meddling with private lives, actually more typical of Social Democracy in Scandinavia than of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Here Plank does us the service of quoting Farmer Cotton and admitting his summary is better than any he could provide

There wasn't no smoke left, save for the Men; and the Chief didn't hold with beer, save for his Men, and closed all the inns; and everything except rules got shorter and shorter.....


I am reminded of the fact that outlawing alcohol, sth tried in US (by Republicans) and in Scandinavia in various measures, Sweden more than Denmark, Finland more than Sweden, was commented on by Gilbert Keith Chesterton, in a novel of which the last chapter could be called "The Scouring of England" - I speak of course of "The Flying Inn". See below, Chestertonian reference, above the other notes. Actually, book II of LotR, the nine setting out from Rivendell against a much mightier Sauron, also has sth to do with this book. A small company is set against the in England omnipotent Lord Ivywood and his ally, the "adapted Muslim", Misysra Ammon. The captain, not unlike Aragorn, and having been a king of a sort until international politics ruined it, ends up facing the armies of the character Omar.

I suspect very strongly that as much as this chapter is against the cultural taste of Plank, so is the book by Chesterton. But then, what do you expect from an Ivywood or a Misysra?

Communism is based on the theory of class struggle, while fascism preaches the unity of the people, which means in practise that everybody is treated equally badly.


Funny, I find it is rather Communism and Socialism which provides the equally badly part.

Then, I disagree with the writer about Italy and am not the kind of man who identifies Nazism and Fascism. Or for that matter Military Junta of Argentina and Fascism.

Whatever the initial ideas, Communism in Soviets soon became and Communism in Eastern Europe West of Soviets from the start was very unequal, but treating everyone badly, with material but not totally freedom related benefits for those helping to enforce Communism. However, the idea of an élite is explicit in Lenin before 1917 and becomes apparent in practise in Sweden too, well before 1976 when they temporarily lost power. Next we start with a quote from the novel, by farmer Cotton, then Plank comments:

He'd funny ideas, had Pimple. Seems he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folk about.... Folk got angry, but he had his answer. A lot of Men~~~, ruffians mostly, came with great waggons, some to carry off the goods south-away, and others to stay. And more came. And before we knew where we were, they were planted here and there all over the Shire....


And just as those who helped the Fascists and the Nazis into power saw their mistake when it was too late, so Pimple-pardon me, Lr. Lotho Sackville-Baggins-goes to his reward. He is murdered and perhaps eaten.


To me that sounds like a more accurate description of Czechoslovakia and Hungary in the years after 1945, than of Austria 1933, Spain 1936 - 39 or Portugal 1926. OK, Mendes Cabeçadas is going to oppose Salazar, but then he is a freemason. Those who did regret that Dollfuss and Franco and Salazar were in power were most usually not those who had helped them into power. Unlike those who regretted that Stalin and Lenin came to power. Or the Communists who were not Communist enough in Budapest 1956 and in Prague 1968. Or the people who were pro-Communist in 1945, but even so ended up in Communist prisons. Obviously, the cannibalist part of the charge is more typical of Orcs than of men, but might in a way stand for the evil of abortion, equally a very nasty and unnatural thing, and in fact liberalised or even enforced (as in China) by Communists. And Henry Makow describes how Freemasons, thinking they would be well treated by Communists for having helped them into power, were often the first ones to be shot.

Christine Arnothy (RIP) dans son roman autobiographique de 1955 décrit un Juif qui sort assez librement tant que Budapest est sous feu, qui se tire même bien d'un rencontre avec les Allemands, mais qui est fusillé par les Communistes, parce qu'il refuse de travailler (comme l'aurait fait un gardien à Auschwitz aussi, ça c'est génuine et n'est pas nié par les révisionnistes), et ceci, si j'ai bien compté les jours, un samedi.

Saruman bears two striking resemblances to Mussolini. Mussolini started his carreer as a local labor leader+ and became the most ruthless oppressor of the labor movement+. Saruman also is a turncoat. Secondly, just like Mussolini Saruman comes to a miserable end, utterly lacking in the theatrical glory of a Goetterdaemmerung.


I wonder if the theatrical glory of a Ride of Walkyries will not accompany the battle of Harmageddon. Now, Mussolini, while not dying a very glorious death, was nevertheless executed by those disaffected with him - those who thought he had betrayed them. Thereby in a way following his orders (after their view of the betrayal part) "if I lead you, follow me, if I command you, obey me ... if I betray you, kill me". He was a very passionate, in certain ways wayward man. Not so Saruman, who is a chilly calculator. Saruman is really closer to both Lord Ivywood and Misysra Ammon than to Mussolini. He is the personality type of a Stalin, or of the régime which ordered soldiers to stand by a nuclear bomb test in Bikini Atoll, telling them that radioactive radiation was the least they had to worry about ... in order to study the diseases caused by it. Or who accepted to test LSD on people. Mussolini was not quite that either.

As to the turncoat charge, we are not dealing with a man who promised in 1922 to keep up the often Marxist trade unions, rather he had pretty clearly shown that, though he wanted some fighting for workers' rights (something he was arguably faithful to under Salò Republic, whatever wrongs it otherwise did on instigation of German Occupany) he was not accepting to have it on the terms of the Marxist Unions.

Saruman had come to power in Isengard precisely under the pretense of fighting against Sauron, a pretense used to save his real lord at the Fall of Dol Goldur. That is really, and not just from a Marxist class war perspective, being a turn coat. And a traitor. Mussolini would have a right to turn in his grave at hearing the comparison.

I must say, this is about where I feel I have to stop reading Plank. Er, actually, not. One more.

Another reason Tolkien thinks it is easy to overthrow an oppressive government is that he overrates the impact of courage. ... Yet discussion and persuasion are the lifeblood of democracy.


But the scouring was not supposed to be "an act of democracy". It was supposed to be an act of military valour, in order to restore a situation where the republican and half democratic and half aristocratic constitution of the Shire can get back to working as it should. I cannot see why such an act would have to be democratic in the parliamentarian sense of the word.

Without courage, you do not kill dragons. Another goodie from Chesterton : "fairy tales are more real than realism, not in saying that there are monsters, but in saying they can be overcome." Cannot find the reference, any more than Chesterton could find all references.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St John of the Cross
24-XI-2015

PS, I will not spare you another Chesterton quote, from The Well and the Shallows:

But it is much more important to insist on the large human and historic matters mentioned at the beginning of this article. Dollfuss died like a loyal and courageous man, asking forgiveness for his murderers; and the souls of the just are in the hands of God, however much their enemies (with that mark of mere mud that is stamped over all they do) take a pleasure in denying them the help of their religion. But Dollfuss dead, even more than Dollfuss living, is also a symbol of something of immense moment to mankind, which is practically never mentioned by our politicians or our papers. We call it for convenience Austria; in a sense we might more truly call it Europe; but, above all (for this is the vital and quite neglected fact), it would be strictly correct and consistent with history to call it Germany. The very fact that the name of "Germany" has been taken from the Austrians and given to the Prussians sums up the tragedy of three hundred years. It was the tale of the war waged by the barbarians against the Empire; the real original German Empire. It began with the first Prussian shot in the Thirty Years' War; it ended with the shot that killed the Austrian Chancellor.

Whether we call it the Empire, or the Old Germany or the culture of the Danube, what Austria meant and means is this. That it is normal for Europeans, even for Germans, to be civilised; that it is normal for Europeans, even for Germans, to be Christians; and, we must in historic honesty add, normal for them to be Catholics. This culture always incurred the hatred of the barbarians to the north-east; and in the nineteenth century a barbarian of genius, named Bismarck, actually managed to transfer to Prussia the prestige that had always normally belonged to Austria. ...


As both Stalin, Lenin and Hitler looked back on Bismarck, I think the spirit of Bismarck in all its incarnations, rather than just either Nazi or Communist may be meant by Saruman. It also shares with Saruman the distinction of ending guilds and privileges and introducing industrialism in a rough capitalistic form./HGL

Chestertonian reference:

THE FLYING INN
BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXIV
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/The_Flying_Inn.txt


The Flying Inn
(1914) Hardcover – June 2, 2008 (facsimile)
by G. K. Chesterton (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Flying-Inn-G-Chesterton/dp/143656350X


Or the essay The Dregs of Puritanism in Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays:

UTOPIA OF USURERS AND OTHER ESSAYS
By Gilbert Keith Chesterton
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/2134.txt


Other reference:

Amazon : I Am Fifteen and I Do Not Want to Die: The True Story of a Young Woman's Wartime Survival
Paperback – April 1, 2010
by Christine Arnothy (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Am-Fifteen-Not-Want-Die/dp/0007328672/ref=la_B00355AUQ6_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448380050&sr=1-1


Other notes:

* My emphasis. ** Italics in original, as per convention of italicising names of works. *** I can't recall what H. P. stands for, though it could have stood for Harry Potter, but doesn't. However, Harry Potter abbreviating as H. P. could be a reference to H. P. Lovecraft. °If you really insist on getting the joke and don't, try a map of Italy in the Roman Antiquity times. Like Punic Wars. °° I had to have the humility, when reading Silence of the Lambs, to find that the book, written just after I left secondary high school, to notice that the crook, when analysed, came forth as having a background very close to mine, before becoming the kind of monster he became. Shy with girls, enjoying to sit beside them etc. But this humility might be beyond Plank. Thus also the lucidity. °°°October Julian Calendar, though already November in the Gregorian one. A little earlier, 13th of October in Fátima in Portugal was one day before 1st October, also a Marian apparition feast, in Czarist Russia. This means that the Revolution happened during the last 13 days of Julian october which coincided withthe first 13 days of Gregorian November. ~ It is "the shire" rather than the correct "the Shire" in the text. Now twice. ~~ A mortal man would have died very soon if exposed on top of the tower, as Gandalf was. And while the dialogue lasted, Saruman was doing magic enhancement of his coat, originally white, now many coloured. ~~~ Men is capitalised in original novel, since by hobbits used as a kind of ethnonym opposed to hobbit. So is, like all usage, with one exception, in the novel Shire. + I take it we are dealing with an U. S. American. He means, I presume, labour leader. Leader is not Latin. Labor is not Old French, Anglo-Norman or English. But it is the way U. S. Americans now spell the Old French, Anglo-Norman and English word Labour, derived in its turn, not from nominative labor (that might give sth like Labre), but from the accusative laborem. Same observation for "labor movement".

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Medieval and Early Modern Lifespans, Again: Berkeleys and Related


1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : "in a time when most people died at an average age of 35" ; 2) What others have to say about Life Expectancy through history - and my take on that ; 3) Longevity in Selected Ancestry and Inlaws of Eleanor of Montfort ; 4) Tudor Times Demographical Stats ; 5) How Many Hours are we Talking About, and How Heavy? ; 6) New blog on the kid : When "Answers" Paint Middle Ages Black ; 7) Creation vs. Evolution : CMI Provided some Lifespans of the Past ; 8)Other list from CMI of lifespans ; 9) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Medieval and Early Modern Lifespans, Again: Berkeleys and Related ; 10) Story of a Cardinal's Title with Pre-Industrial Demographics

Good old wiki comes to our help again, and once again I do the collation of these article extracts. First some interesting biography. The lifeyears, divided in Men (Gentle or Otherwise - I am joking, socially speaking they were all gentlemen) and Ladies. Or rather Ladies first. And last the years of age at each death, in order of magnitude, extracting from there the statistically relevant factors of Minimum, Maximum, Median, Lower and Higher Quartiles. On at least one man, I omitted all, since it was only a floruit : not when he was born or died, only when he was a grown and active adult.

For the Male side, two men have alternative birthyears, hence lower and higher versions of the stats. Another case of alternative birthyear apparent is 5 January 1452/1453, I take it this means he was born 1453 according to our reckoning, but it counted as 1452 since not yet March 25th.


Sir Robert Berkeley (1584 – 5 August 1656) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1624. He suffered considerably for giving a judgement in favour of Ship Money.

Rowland Berkeley (about 1548 - 11 June 1611) of Worcester and Spetchley was an English clothier and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1593 and 1611.

Rowland Berkeley (1613 - 1696) of Cotheridge Worcestershire was an English politician, only son of William Berkeley (1582-1658) of Cotheridge and his wife Margaret, daughter of Thomas Chettle of Worcester.[1] Rowland's father, William, was eldest son and heir to Rowland Berkeley of Spetchley, Worcester clothier and politician.

William de Berkeley, 1st Marquess of Berkeley (1426 – 14 February 1492) was an English peer, given the epithet "The Waste-All" by the family biographer and steward John Smyth of Nibley.[1] He was buried at "St. Augustine's Friars, London" according to one source,[2] but most likely in the Berkeley family foundation of St Augustine's Abbey, Bristol.

James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley (c. 1394 – 22 October[1] 1463), also known as "James the Just", was an English peer.

Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley the Magnificent (5 January 1352/53 – 13 July 1417) was an English peer.

Maurice de Berkeley, 4th Baron Berkeley the Valiant (ca. 1330 – 8 June 1368) was an English peer born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England to Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley and Lady Margaret Mortimer.

Elizabeth le Despenser (c. 1327 – 13 July 1389) was an English noblewoman. She was the youngest daughter of Hugh le Despenser the younger and his wife Eleanor de Clare.[1] Her father is famous for being the favourite of Edward II of England, and being executed as a result of his position and actions. Through her mother, Elizabeth was a great granddaughter of King Edward I of England.

Thomas de Berkeley (c. 1293 or 1296 – 27 October 1361), aka Thomas the Rich, was an English baron and the custodian of Berkeley Castle. He was the son of Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley and Eve la Zouche.

Margaret Mortimer, Baroness Berkeley (2 May 1304 – 5 May 1337) was the wife of Thomas de Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley. She was the eldest daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, the de facto ruler of England from 1327 to 1330, and his wife Joan de Geneville, Baroness Geneville.

Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley (Berkeley, Gloucestershire, April 1271 – Wallingford Castle, 31 May 1326), sometimes termed The Magnanimous, was an English baron and rebel.

Roger de Mortimer, 3rd Baron Mortimer, 1st Earl of March (25 April 1287 – 29 November 1330), was an English nobleman and powerful Marcher lord who gained many estates in the Welsh Marches and Ireland following his advantageous marriage to the wealthy heiress Joan de Geneville, 2nd Baroness Geneville.

Joan de Geneville, 2nd Baroness Geneville, Countess of March, Baroness Mortimer (2 February 1286 – 19 October 1356), also known as Jeanne de Joinville, was the daughter of Sir Piers de Geneville and Joan of Lusignan.

Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer, of Wigmore (1231 – 30 October 1282), was a famous and honoured knight from Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire. He was a loyal ally of King Henry III of England. He was at times an enemy, at times an ally, of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales. Born in 1231, Roger was the son of Ralph de Mortimer and his Welsh wife, Princess Gwladys Ddu, daughter of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and Joan Plantagenet, daughter of John "Lackland", King of England.

Ranulph or Ralph de Mortimer (before 1198 to before 6 August 1246) was the second son of Roger de Mortimer and Isabel de Ferrers of Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire. He succeeded his elder brother before 23 November 1227 and built Cefnllys and Knucklas castles in 1240.

Maud de Braose, Baroness Mortimer (1224 – shortly before 23 March 1301)[1] was a noble heiress, and one of the most important,[2] being a member of the powerful de Braose family which held many lordships and domains in the Welsh Marches. She was the wife of Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer, a celebrated soldier and Marcher baron. Maud was born in Wales in 1224, the second eldest daughter and co-heiress of Marcher lord William de Braose and Eva Marshal.

William de Braose (c. 1197 – 2 May 1230) was the son of Reginald de Braose by his first wife, Grecia Briwere. He was an ill-fated member of a powerful and long lived dynasty of Marcher Lords.

Eva Marshal (1203 – 1246) was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman and the wife of the powerful Marcher lord William de Braose. She was the daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, and the granddaughter of Strongbow and Aoife of Leinster.

Reginald de Braose (died June 1228) was one of the sons of William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber and Matilda, also known as Maud de St. Valery and Lady de la Haie. Her other children included William and Giles.

William de Braose, (or William de Briouze), 4th Lord of Bramber (1144/1153 – 9 August 1211), court favourite of King John of England, at the peak of his power, was also Lord of Gower, Abergavenny, Brecknock, Builth, Radnor, Kington, Limerick, Glamorgan, Skenfrith, Briouze in Normandy, Grosmont, and White Castle. William was the son of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber and his wife Bertha of Hereford, also known as Bertha de Pitres, (born 1130) daughter of Miles Fitz Walter, Earl of Hereford and his wife, Sibyl, daughter of Bernard de Neufmarche. From his father he inherited the Rape of Bramber, in Sussex, and through his mother he inherited a large estate in the Welsh Marches area of modern-day Monmouthshire.

William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber (fl. 1135–1179) was a 12th-century Marcher lord who secured a foundation for the dominant position later held by the Braose family in the Welsh Marches. In addition to the family's English holdings in Sussex and Devon, William had inherited Radnor and Builth, in Wales, from his father Philip. By his marriage he increased the Braose Welsh holdings to include Brecon and Abergavenny. Bertha of Hereford, also known as Bertha de Pitres (born c.1130), was the daughter of Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, and a wealthy heiress, Sibyl de Neufmarché. She was the wife of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber to whom she brought many castles and Lordships, including Brecknock, Abergavenny, and Hay.

Miles FitzWalter of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, Lord of Brecknock (died 24 December 1143) was High Sheriff of Gloucester and Constable of England. Sibyl de Neufmarché, Countess of Hereford, suo jure Lady of Brecknock (c. 1100 – after 1143), was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, heiress to one of the most substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches. The great-granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, Sibyl was also connected to the nobility of England and Normandy. Sibyl inherited the titles and lands of her father, Bernard de Neufmarché, Lord of Brecon, after her mother, Nest ferch Osbern, had declared her brother Mahel to have been illegitimate. Most of these estates passed to Sibyl's husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as her dowry.

Maud de Braose, Lady of Bramber (c. 1155 – 1210) was the wife of William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber, a powerful Marcher baron and court favourite of King John of England. She would later incur the wrath and enmity of the King who caused her to be starved to death in the dungeon of Corfe Castle along with her eldest son.

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (of the first creation), Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland (1130 – 20 April 1176) was an English lord notable for his leading role in the Norman invasion of Ireland. Like his father, he was also commonly known by his nickname Strongbow (Norman French: Arc-Fort).

Aoife MacMurrough (c.1145–1188, Irish: Aoife Ní Diarmait), also known by later historians as Eva of Leinster, was the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough (c.1110-1171) (Irish: Diarmait Mac Murchada), King of Leinster, and his wife Mor O'Toole (c.1114-1191).

Margaret Mortimer, Baroness Mortimer (née de Fiennes; after 1269 – 7 February 1333), was an English noblewoman born to William II de Fiennes, Baron Tingry and Blanche de Brienne. Her paternal grandparents were Enguerrand II de Fiennes and Isabelle de Conde. Her maternal grandparents were Jean de Brienne and Jeanne, Dame de Chateaudun.

Thomas Wylde (bef.1508 - 1559) clothier of The Commandery, Worcester, England was the son of Simon Wylde of The Ford, near Dodderhill where Thomas was to acquire the manor of Impney.

Samuel Fell D.D. (1584 – 1 February 1649) was an English academic and clergyman, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford[1][2] and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford during the First English Civil War.


Ladies:

  • c.1145–1188
  • c. 1155 – 1210
  • 1203 – 1246
  • 1224 – shortly before 23 March 1301
  • after 1269 – 7 February 1333
  • 2 February 1286 – 19 October 1356
  • 2 May 1304 – 5 May 1337
  • c. 1327 – 13 July 1389


The ladies don't die out after 1389, they just go into hiding. They were more prominent in the Catholic Middle Ages than in the, in England, Protestant Early Modern Times.

Men:

  • 1130 – 20 April 1176
  • 1144/1153 – 9 August 1211
  • c. 1197 – 2 May 1230
  • before 1198 to before 6 August 1246
  • 1231 – 30 October 1282
  • April 1271 – Wallingford Castle, 31 May 1326
  • 25 April 1287 – 29 November 1330
  • c. 1293 or 1296 – 27 October 1361
  • ca. 1330 – 8 June 1368
  • 5 January 1352/53 – 13 July 1417
  • c. 1394 – 22 October[1] 1463
  • 1426 – 14 February 1492
  • bef.1508 - 1559
  • about 1548 - 11 June 1611
  • 1584 – 1 February 1649
  • 1584 – 5 August 1656
  • 1613 - 1696


Ladies: 33 | 43 43 55 | 62 63- 70 | 77

Min 33, Max 77, Med 55/62, Lower Q 43, Higher Q 63-/70

Men, Gentle or Otherwise: Min 33, Max 83, Med L V 58, Med H V 63, Lower Q 48, Higher Q L V 65, Higher Q H V 67

Lower V: 33 | 38 43 46 | 48 | 51 51+ 55 | 58 | 63 64 65- | 65 | 66 69 72 | 83

Higher V: 33 | 38 43 46 | 48 | 51 51+ 55 | 63 | 64 65- 66 | 67 | 68 69 72 | 83

Someone might say "but these are all nobility" (ok, except perhaps Samuel Fell, Doctor Divinitatis?) (btw, let's check that?) ...


Samuel Fell D.D. (1584 – 1 February 1649) was an English academic and clergyman, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford[1][2] and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford[3] during the First English Civil War.

Samuel Fell was born in the parish of St Clement Danes, London, and was educated at Westminster School. Thence he proceeded as a queen's scholar to Christ Church, Oxford, matriculating 20 November 1601, and graduated B.A. 27 June 1605, M.A. 30 May 1608, B.D. 23 November 1615, and D.D. 23 June 1619. He was elected proctor in 1614, and soon after became rector of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, and chaplain to King James I. It has been suggested that this position brought Robert Hooke to Oxford many years later, since at Freshwater Fell knew Hooke’s father.[4]

In May 1619, Fell was made a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and in 1626 Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, which he held, according to custom, with a canonry of Worcester Cathedral. These posts he held till 1637. At first his religious views were Calvinistic, but he changed his opinions and became an active ally of Archbishop William Laud. Laud promoted him, making Fell to the rector of Stow-on-the-Wold in 1637, Dean of Lichfield in January 1638, and Dean of Christ Church in June 1638.[2] Fell continued with improvements in the cathedral and college projected by his predecessor, Brian Duppa, and added the staircase leading to the hall.

Active in Oxford University affairs, on 15 August 1637, Samuel Fell wrote to Laud about the excessive number of alehouses in Oxford, but on more than one occasion he was rebuked from Laud for setting his authority as head of a college in opposition to the proctors and other public officials of the university. On the outbreak of the Civil War he became a conspicuous royalist, and after serving the office of Vice-Chancellor in 1645 and 1646 was reappointed in 1647.[3] Soon after his reappointment the parliamentary visitors came to Oxford. In September, Fell was summoned before them; he declined to attend, was imprisoned, and on his release in November was deprived of all his offices in the University. He retired to the rectory of Sunningwell, near Abingdon, which he had held since 21 September 1625, and died there on 1 February 1649. He was buried in his church.

Samuel Fell married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Wylde,[5] esq., of The Commandery Worcester, by whom he was the father of John Fell, Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford, and several daughters including Mary who married Thomas Willis.

The Wickipeejuh : Samuel Fell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Fell


... and after saying that add "they were all nobility, ok Fell was Anglican clergy, and thus privileged, but what about common people?"

I remind of two things:

  • i) Early Industrialism and esp. 19th C. Industrialism had not yet made the living conditions of the common man that unhealthy, it was not yet very common to spend a childhood in coalmines and then die;

  • ij) and then we do not have all that much documentation on how long unknown common men lived. Saying "they lived less long" is based on some kind of prejudice. Or, perhaps, on bad memories from 19th C. Industrialism. When short lives were really the rule of the day for proletarian industrial workers, as well as for homeless.


I have a feeling I will be saying this over and over again, with more and more statistics. And all of them pointing in one direction. People did NOT generally die at forty. They were NOT extremely lucky to be alive at 41. They were NOT rarities at 60, looked on much as we look on people of 100.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Presentation of the Mother of God,
the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Temple
21-XI-2015