Way too much about nothing

Can any man say he tried his best to sooth?
mull over that for a bit. it's actually a good question. i haven't, quite honestly. i'm a mean fucker, evidently. i take joy out of grain silos falling on dumbasses who decide to take out the side nearest them with a sledgehammer. it's just so funny! you can just tell in their minds they're saying, "damn it! my wife was right!" yes, men have a problem admitting that a lot of the time. it's the ego thing, perhaps. i hate being wrong beyond almost everything. end of story. i'd rather have that silo mentioned earlier fall on my head than admit i was wrong. so yeah, now we'll get into the synthesis blog...Yay! you're all thinking, another synthesis blog to read!! well curb that enthusiasm, bucko, we're not there yet. i have to actually read a few blogs first and choose the very choicest tidbits, the finest of the dark meat, mmmm...meat. alright, here we go. you want a mystery tour you'll get it.

people have been talking about inventions brought on by the middle ages. it's good stuff. technology is why we still dominate other species and always have. other than our fun toys we're just like a big, tasty smelling treat for predators. so good thing be made clubs and spears because otherwise we'd be up in a tree screaming obsenities down at a big ol' bear that thinks we'd make a tasty morsel, again. At this point i'm going to diverge from my original plan of action. I think carolyn perhaps actually had the spirit of language in the middle ages. she decided she liked the sound of the word fiercefully. she then wrote it into one of her poems. so not only is she following in the tradition of a long line of bards and troubadours but also in the line writers in general. I'm going to go ahead and formally soften my view of her word. it could catch on. not with me, but maybe with others. and, of course, that's really how they happened to be in our language in the first place. the normans brought french to the english isles and english absorbed their words and synthesized new ones based on the model of the french words. as a result our vocabulary expanded. Leanne hit on a few things, as well. War was a huge event in every time period. It was immortalized in poems like the song of roland, beowulf and the illiad. The lords were also knights and fought in war after war in the middle ages. it was a good system for survival at the time. Superstition was huge, too. Witches? Science? Gods? Yeah, that's right. Witches used the demon art of science to summon gods from machines! Everyone freak out and run to the bishop!! now he will soothe us and assure us that we must burn those witches, yeah burning is way better than finding out if she's really a witch. But how to test it...how to test it...ah! wood burns but wood also floats. let's test the witch with the brilliant "tie-a-boulder-to-her-and-toss-her-in-the-lake" test. if she floats she's wooden and thus a witch, we burn her. if she drowns she was clearly not a witch. darn, how to fix this PR problem... well hey, at least now we know for sure now...and stuff...oh wait! What's this? another witch to test!?!(please note that most people didn't even notice how completely asinine this system was) In the end, "the churches [ran] EVERYTHING". For more on the relevance and perhaps existence of witches and the debate about them you can read up on the so-called Great Witch Debate, in which Johann Brenz, Johann Weyer and the honorable Jean Bodin argued different viewpoints about the nature and existence of witches. I also have an essay on the topic if anyone would like it. Makes you realize how bad the times were. Just one bright spot about our modern life is that we don't burn people anymore...

Feudalism's Demise, Pansy!

http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/feudal.html
http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/mmarkowski/212/8/longb.html
It can be argued that the end of feudalism came about in the late Middle Ages. The rise of the merchant middle class helped to shape this. Due to this the “feudal obligations of lord and vassal were…replaced by contractual agreements based on payments of money.” This was as a direct result of the social fluidity brought about by the merchant class.

Another factor in this was the rise of superior military technology. The feudal lords typically rode into battle as knights. With the advent of something like the longbow, invented in about the 12th-century, “a heavily-armored, mounted knight (who had to be trained some 5-10 years at great expense) could be beaten by a peasant with a strong arm and six weeks' training.” This allowed for more centralized control by the monarch. As with our central government these kings would allow for more local rule than with a lord for each fife. All the while the lords,
“remained ensconced in their estates, and in a way of life that was dying out. Perhaps it was pride, isolationism, conservatism, or the feudal psychology of remaining free 'lords of their own castles' that hindered them from seeing that technology and social relationships were passing them by.”
And therein lies the root of the problem with feudal lords, they tried to maintain the status quo sans any change at all. This is an unrealistic worldview at best and at worst lunacy. For this reason, the feudal lords never saw the changes coming to their societies that would eventually overthrow them.

Beowulf

What does Beowulf tell us about the culture that created it? Lots of important...stuff...that's what. It shows us a culture steeped in tribal loyalties and heroic struggles against the odds. In the first quest Beowulf undertakes he must fight the beast Grendel, a huge troll-like thing that is killing and eating the warriors of Beowulf's realm. Thus, Beowulf does the brave, noble thing and goes to defeat this foe. When Beowulf defeats Grendel he does it for the good of his people. He takes it upon himself to protect those men who are loyal to him. He also shows incredible bravery against the odds and doesn't worry about corporal wounds in the face of greater immortal praise of his deeds.
Another thing that is worth noting is the fact that women play a minor role. Grendel's mother is one of the few females we see. And she's something of a hag, a witch, not your typical woman to say it frankly. This is pervasive in the works of this timeframe. There is a machismo evident that overshadows women. The poem focuses completely on the heroic deeds of man in battle.
A saying I've heard often that applies is that "no man recognises leadership without the challenge of battle." In a society of war and strife we can see a culture dominated by men. That does make sense. Men do the fighting so men do the ruling and men are praised as the saviors of their people. It may be offending to our new, "enlightened" view of the world but we do live in a very different world from this time. War is no longer our prefered way of defending ourselves. Women are much more free to do what they choose and are frankly better at some things than most men would be. That isn't the case with the culture of Beowulf. Life was hard, work was hard and in every way life was a struggle. The heartiness and strength of men were useful in farming, in fighting, in the physical labor demanded.
These times were dominated by superstition. Beowulf's weapons are named, they are nearly animate to him. He believes, as many did, that his weapons possess a mythical power. For instance, his sword is described as having "failed him before it went deep enough, helped him/ less than he needed." We can clearly see the personification of the sword here. It is like his kinsmen who, after his defeat, did not "[help] him," but instead "ran for their lives, fled/ deep in a wood." Beowulf lived by and died by his sword and this is a large part of why it is described in such human terms. It has its own moods in the work, it has its failings, too. In his final battle he also fights a mythical creature, the dragon. This serves to further higlight his struggles in the light of myth.
At the end of the poem we get a clear show of what "kinship should mean" with the one man who remains on the field in honor of his prince. Here we see one of the most important things to the Germanic and Scandanavian tribes, loyalty and fealty. The only man of the entire group who is memorialized by himself is the man who shows true kinship and loyalty. Those who fled are clearly disdained. This was what would have happened had they abandoned him like this in real life, they would be ostracized.
Herein are a few minor and no doubt poorly defended insights into the culture that created the epic Beowulf.

well well well, i'm sure you that actually take the time to read this are saying, finally another bit of blogging from our somewhat low and misguided fool. i know you will be well amused. i also know that i am really, really, ridiculously sore still. no workout in my future today. i'm also working on yet another brilliant little cold. yay! but i am back in school and looking forward to it, as i always do. give me a month and this beautiful fascade will be tarnished and i'll start to bitch about being in school still, lol. i have a good time with how predictable i am at times. like now. you knew i would bitch about something, even though i'm relatively happy. you knew i'd be late to class, i really usually am. it's my way. i should do something about that. but now i'm going to go enjoy myself before my choir class. perhaps i'll look for a class to replace my world music class. they canceled it. i am unhappy about that. so i need a few credits now to make up for it. i'll see you all soon. ciao.

and so it begins, the most painful day of my life, on a gloomy early morning in january. blue eyes are a cloak i wear, blue eyes are torn and red now with water flowing down cheekbones, blue eyes are all i need, everything. and so my journey begins, to end in my room with tears in my eyes and a heart that feels like it's eating away at my chest and stomach to escape.