[HN Gopher] The Burial of William the Conqueror: A Comedy of Errors
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The Burial of William the Conqueror: A Comedy of Errors
Author : diodorus
Score : 90 points
Date : 2024-01-31 20:09 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (strangeco.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (strangeco.blogspot.com)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This fiasco is infamous, but such situations at the death of a
| ruler were not unusual. The lines between "King" and "Warlord"
| are small. At the time, non-violent transitions of power were the
| exception. When such a person dies it is normal for everyone to
| panic. Anyone owed money, and the King owed everyone money, would
| grab what they could in full knowledge that the dead ruler's
| debts were unlikely to ever be paid. Even stripping the body was
| not extreme. A king's daily clothing could easily be worth many
| years wages for a servant. Everyone would retreat to their homes
| in full knowledge that armies would soon be on the roads.
| Valuables would be buried and livestock taken to higher pastures
| out of sight. Ships would put to sea. It was always a time of
| fear.
| bee_rider wrote:
| A king is just a nepo-warlord.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Sometimes kings were elected, though. (Typically not by the
| general population, but by a clique of influental people, so
| I guess your point stands.)
| grotorea wrote:
| If you're calling elected kings nepo-warlords I don't think
| calling a king elected by the ~~petty warlords~~ warrior
| nobility a first warlord is a stretch.
| Someone wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy
| kitd wrote:
| Good story, retold in typical style by Horrible Histories here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289IDfmm8fM
|
| A bit OT, but "The Last English King" by Julian Rathbone is an
| excellent historical novel surrounding the Battle of Hastings,
| told from a Saxon PoV. It's funny that even now, nearly 1000
| years later, Hastings is generally felt from an English view as a
| defeat, despite being the founding event of the English monarchy.
| As alluded to in the video above.
| stvltvs wrote:
| Alfred the Great et al. would beg to differ about Hastings
| being the beginning of the English monarchy rather than the
| beginning of the Norman monarchy.
| grotorea wrote:
| Favourite part of the historiography of England:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_yoke
| arethuza wrote:
| There is an amusing part of Michael Wood's excellent _In
| Search of England_ about the Norman Yoke. While at school
| he had written a letter to Bernard Montgomery ( "Monty")
| and was summoned to the House of Lords to debate the matter
| with the great man - he only realises fairly late on that
| of course Montgomery is from a Norman background (descended
| from Roger of Montgomery) while as a Wood he was from
| humble Anglo-Saxon stock.
| arethuza wrote:
| Didn't Alfred describe himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons"
| rather than "King of England" - a very minor point but it
| reminds me of the title "King of Scots" - the Scots being
| incomers to what become Scotland in a similar way that the
| Anglo-Saxon "English" were incomers to what became England?
| jccooper wrote:
| Alfred was styled "King of the Anglo-Saxons"; his grandson
| and (indirect) successor AEthelstan was first styled "King
| of the English". The same kingdom was taken by William I,
| who also styled himself "King of the English", as would be
| common amongst the Normans until John.
|
| While Alfred may have borne a different title, he held the
| same office as the (later) Kings of England.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > According to the historian Orderic Vitalis, William moaned on
| his deathbed, "I treated the native inhabitants of the kingdom
| with unreasonable severity, cruelly oppressed high and low,
| unjustly disinherited many, and caused the death of thousands by
| starvation and war, especially in Yorkshire....In mad fury I
| descended on the English of the north like a raging lion, and
| ordered that their homes and crops with all their equipment and
| furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and
| herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So I chastised
| a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation
| and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young
| and old, of this fair people."
|
| This is an interesting contrast with leaders like Genghis Khan,
| who seemed to think (or at least portray to others) that his
| actions were not only acceptable but noble and religiously
| desirable.
|
| It'd be interesting to see a study of regret and non-regret among
| conquerors throughout the ages. Do we have other examples of
| this, or does William stand out among his contemporaries and
| predecessors?
| aredox wrote:
| How reliable is this, though? Many people (especially religious
| ones) around him were best placed to pretend he turned very
| remorseful.
| graemep wrote:
| Would they make it up though? Depends on motives and it is
| likely he died with many people with different motives around
| him. Some would want to condemn his violence, but others
| would want to justify it as their holdings would depend on
| it.
| munificent wrote:
| Probably because:
|
| _> He had gifts sent to the local churches and to the
| poor, "so that what I amassed through evil deeds may be
| assigned to the holy uses of good men. " Some of his wealth
| also went to the clergymen of Mantes, so the churches he
| had destroyed could be rebuilt._
|
| I can definitely imagine some bishop or cardinal pilfering
| the king's treasure room while claiming the king decreed it
| out of remorse.
| graemep wrote:
| You can imagine it but its a less probable explanation.
|
| It was common to leave things to the church and the poor
| so there was no need to make up the story to justify it.
| It is likely that a dishonest claim would be challenged
| by someone given that he said the same things to
| "everyone".
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I don't know if I can summarize as what some historian
| said about rulers in the middle ages. But I'll take a go
| at it.
|
| Question: Were rulers callous and violent or were they
| pious and fearful of being judged in the afterlife?
|
| Ans: Yes.
|
| Also I do remember a reference to an actual will by a
| knight who renounced his crimes and left a bunch of his
| wealth to charity. I think it's hard to understand how
| back then the system, especially for a member of the
| ruling class, was more like the mafia than what we
| experience today. As such it'd be hard for someone not to
| get caught up in it.
| sethrin wrote:
| Yes, people would simply invent things, or a similar
| process with the same effect. The idea of history as some
| sort of neutral record of events is itself historically
| novel, and most of our sources around the Norman Conquest
| has a very pronounced slant one way or the other.
| Chroniclers generally were also using a great deal of
| secondhand information (at best). In the given instance,
| Orderic Vitalis was cloistered and more or less explicitly
| writing propaganda for William.
| graemep wrote:
| The other great example as the Emperor Ashoka who regretted the
| suffering caused by his wars of conquest in his lifetime.
| sorokod wrote:
| The contrast is likely due to the different religions William
| and Temujin practiced.
|
| Christianity was an awkward fit to the ethos of the Germanic
| nobility.
| Bayart wrote:
| Christianity has been reframed in the context of Roman
| militarism from its very beginning as an official religion.
| It's in the myth itself, Constantine converting at the
| Milvian Bridge. The end result being a system of beliefs
| that's both socially conscious and allows for violence on
| behalf of the State. Pre-Christian religion in the Empire was
| weaker in that sense, as it was mostly concerned with
| ritualizing arbitrary decisions. It was a good fit for
| Germanic warriors trying to upgrade to Late Roman land-
| owners.
| sorokod wrote:
| Yet, you see William and many other medieval rulers,
| panicking and repenting on their deathbeds.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Almost as if, morality is something ingrained in every
| human being in some way, maybe as some higher rules of
| overall fairness. And fairness is something I can see in
| our small kids, they didn't have to be taught that.
|
| Or maybe medieval catholicism with their rather primitive
| views and morals would instill proper fear in everybody.
| Which was then often overcome ie by greed or envy, but
| never could go completely away.
| sethrin wrote:
| No, you see _accounts_ of that happening, and setting
| aside problems with veracity, you don 't necessarily have
| a good handle on frequency.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > The contrast is likely due to the different religions
| William and Temujin practiced.
|
| This was my initial gut reaction as well, but then I
| remembered the incredible violence and devastation that
| Christian Europeans brought upon themselves and others over
| the last 1500 years. How many of those kings, popes, and
| other leaders expressed similar regret on their deathbeds?
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| > This was my initial gut reaction as well, but then I
| remembered the incredible violence and devastation that
| Christian Europeans brought upon themselves and others over
| the last 1500 years.
|
| Don't generalise to all European Christians. It was the
| west European Catholic and Protestant Christians. Orthodox
| Christians were and are up to these days much more
| civilised society.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > This is an interesting contrast with leaders like Genghis
| Khan, who seemed to think (or at least portray to others) that
| his actions were not only acceptable but noble and religiously
| desirable.
|
| Didn't the Muslims or Christians (or both) think that the
| Mongols were the Wrath of God? I'd definitely lean into that.
| photonthug wrote:
| Atilla was known as the scourge of God, but opinions are
| still divided on whether the name or the man or tribe was
| Germanic, Mongol, or other. Seems likely they were a
| surprisingly heterogenous lot, literally mongrels.
| Fascinating and surprising how little we know for sure.
| Source: insomniac Wikipedia binges
| avgcorrection wrote:
| That's a cool aside but Attila rampaged many centuries
| before the Mongols.
| photonthug wrote:
| Right, and it makes me wonder whether the great Khans in
| their time knew more about Atilla than we do. Things like
| leveraging religion to spread intimidation might be part
| of the playbook they copied, or might just be convergent
| evolution, hard to say. Any modern would certainly think
| of it, but back in the day it seems pretty innovative
| dreen wrote:
| There is a quote attributed to Genghis Khan:
|
| 'I am the flail of god. Had you not comitted great sins, god
| would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.'
|
| Considering how total the destruction was that the Mongols
| visited on the conquered, it is almost believable. And
| likewise, them not invading Europe was considered to be
| divine intervention.
|
| The Mongols believed the world was meant to be theirs, by
| divine right. Saying No to a Mongol when he asks you for
| something (eg your land or daughter) was considered a
| religious offense.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| The idea that divine intervention places limits on rulers,
| like Genghis Kahn, could be supported by Genesis 20:3-7,
| where a king is prevented from sinning through divine
| intervention.
| jbandela1 wrote:
| On the other hand he did go from being known as "William the
| Bastard" to being known as "William the Conqueror".
|
| It is also illustrative of the advances in medical science. As
| one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, William could
| only wait for the inevitable horrible death which took 5 weeks to
| happen from the date of injury to when he died. Today, these
| kinds of injuries and worse are routinely treated in trauma
| centers all across the world.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I have heard that his bloated abdomen needed to be "pierced" to
| get him into the coffin, which no doubt released a horrible
| stench. But I like to think that someone had the honor of
| actually stabbing the King, that someone from the "bastard"
| line of thinking enjoyed doing so.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| you didn't read the article, did you
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I did. I've read of this incident many many times. Anyone
| who has studied British history has read several versions
| and translations, each slightly different.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "As one of the richest, most powerful men in the world, William
| could only wait for the inevitable horrible death which took 5
| weeks to happen from the date of injury to when he died."
|
| True, but it is also true that the richest, most powerful
| people of today still die after weeks of agony because of
| conditions we cannot treat. At best, we can sedate them a bit
| to make their passing easier.
|
| People from the 23rd century will likely pity us just as much
| as we pity medieval people.
| Bayart wrote:
| On the subject, there's an excellent Youtube channel ran by a
| medievalist named Dr. Allan Barton dedicated to the very specific
| subject of aristocratic (in particular royal and British) funeral
| practices.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@allanbarton
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