History Channel Tense

After watching the short clip on prohibition which I found on the History Channel's videos section, they did not use the historical present tense as they had done in the film on vikings. The narrator of the clip spoke in past tense and talked about the key figures and dates that OCCURRED, rather than what was occurring. I do notice that most of the historical programs on the History Channel (not Ax Men...) use the historical present tense, which I actually enjoy listening to because of the storytelling element to it. It creates a program that may be more geared to attracting viewers than being semantically accurate, but I think that that is what the viewer should expect of a television program. Any other channel is showing sex, drugs, or violence, so History Channel has to make some money. 

Sumptuary Laws Opinions

The sumptuary laws are perhaps the silliest thing that I have read about it this sourcebook. There are too many of these laws to enforce practically, and the sheer concept of restricting social mobility through dress is a laughable reason to prevent women from wearing certain clothing items.


With the two dates given for the sets of laws from Venice and from England, one must wonder why the sumptuary laws are even being enforced with people dying in the streets from the bubonic plague. 1299 and 1363 are dates that land right in that window of the Black Death. 


Digging a little deeper in the text of the laws, I can imagine that if someone were to be found guilty of dressing above their social class, the fine would prove really if they deserved to belong to that group as they would have the money to pay for the fine. 

Irish vs. German

A main difference between the laws of the Germanic people and the Irish deals with the marriage and especially to that of women. In Tacitus' account of the Germanic peoples, he mentions that it is the husband who brings a dower to the wife rather than the Roman tradition of the woman bringing it to the husband. This Roman tradition was echoed in the Irish traditions, as explained in Cain Lanamna. 


Another difference is the divorce that has to be mutual in Irish culture and in Germanic culture is not present. This is a part of the bigger difference that is the amount of relationships that a Irish man and woman can enter into. In Cain Lanamna, there are 10 distinct relationships listed that were socially acceptable, and only a few mentioned in what Tacitus wrote. 


In Tacitus' writing, he mentions that there are few adulteries, which is an interesting point. In the Irish laws, there are relationships that are legally sanctioned for, that in Germanic lands would be considered adultery. In a sense, the Germanic people and the Irish share sparse amount of adulterers, but that is if one ignores the content of the adultery. 

Summary of Law of the Couple

This document provides a very specific look at the laws of medieval Ireland, not too different from that of Tacitus' description of the Germanic peoples.


The document starts out by describing the kinds of relationships that existed in this society. It then lists the types of relationships that can exist between men and women, including: 


(1) Union of common contribution 
(2) Union of a woman on a man's contribution 
(3) Union of a man on a woman's contribution with service
(4) Union of a woman who accepts a man's solicitation 
(5) Union of a man who visits the woman, without work, without solicitation, without provision, without material contribution 
(6) Union by abduction
(7) Union of wandering mercenaries 
(8) Union by criminal seduction 
(9) Union by rape 
(10) Union of mockery


The document then proceeds to explain these 10 relationships of "couples of cohabitation and procreation."


The first one describes a couple that share all goods and anything being sold off would have to  be consulted over with the other member of the relationship.


The second one describes a relationship with the man doing most of the work except for that of the housework. This also describes the fair conditions of a divorce.


The third relationship is that of the heiress, or the woman in the relationship, providing for the family. This is almost the exact opposite of the second type of relationship.


The rest of these relationships are considered as "other unions". These are also more self-explanatory than the previous three and are have less detail applied to them.


The fourth union involves splitting the work of the woman with the man and splitting the property of the wife. 


The fifth one involves a woman that works and shares one-fifth of the product of the work with the spouse. 


The sixth and eighth ones are listed combined and involve sharing the offspring of the couple but a fine is in place for the man who abducted her so long as the woman's family wishes that the property be paid for by the man. 


The seventh one does not receive a further explanation in this document.


The ninth union is similar to that of the sixth and eighth ones except only involves paying a fine for the rape of a woman if that woman approves that a fine must be paid. This couple also possesses only offspring together.


The tenth type of relationship almost seems a comedic relief but describes the union of two "a lunatic or madman with a deranged woman or madwoman." The person that brings them to marry must take care of the offspring, if there are any.

Subjunctive or No Subjunctive?

The question of whether or not the subjunctive is necessary in the English language is one of personal choice. We clearly see that the subjunctive's use is fading out in schools, but is this fading out just?


When comparing sentences of "If I were a rich man," and "If I was a rich man," the use of was implies more of a past tense form of the verb is, but were is just as useful, if not more so because of its versatility. 


The problem here is that most people treat this option as they treat an Oxford comma, where it is only slightly more useful. It is for this reason that it is fading out in our English speaking world. In other languages, the subjunctive may be vital to the understanding of the sentence, but in English, the subjunctive combined with the multiple uses of some of the tenses of many verbs creates redundancies that are almost best avoided by using the more common tense of the word, even if it is not as good as the subjunctive tense of the word. 

Roman Woman

In the study of antiquity, and as we have seen throughout the reading of the texts in class, women are oft not as written about than their male counterparts. 


The question of contention is whether or not Roman women were victims of their era, or powerful members of their society.


The Roman matron was a strong symbol of how much power the woman had in Rome, even if educationally, they were left out to dry. They could be independent of their husbands if they bore 3 or 4 children, dependent on their status. This shows both that women were subject to laws of the time period and restricted by them, and that they could advance their well-being in a semi-fair manner. 


We see this in many other fair laws in Rome, but we also see the 'victim of society' side of these laws in those regarding adultery and divorce. We see adulterous relationships, courtesans, and prostitutes come in between a married man and his wife, but women are not allowed any of this. 


With these two examples, it is fair to say that in looking at women's liberties, we see that they are strong examples of women being powerful members of their society, and in the injustices, we see them sub par to men.  

Good, Bad, & Ugly

When looking at examples of poor, good, and great writing, I often times have a hard time putting my finger on what falls in where. Most of what is read as a History major is primary sources accounts of some event or secondary sources, which are edited and checked by a group of peers.

Poor writing must be found then in the form of something an untrained writer would write or something that has no editing prior to publication.

This street sign may qualify as poor writing, simply because of the obvious message it sends. All jokes aside, writing must send a clear message and must be easy for the reader to read, while writing on a level appropriate for the audience.

Good pieces of writing are something that I would expect to find in a local newspaper, where, clearly, these people are talented in writing enough to have a job for just writing, but they are not necessarily creatively coming up with thick plots and three dimensional characters. They simply hear of events or items of interest and write about them.

The state's public schools have cut 8 percent of staff since 2008-09, losing at least 16,678 positions and laying off 6,097 people, according to new data from the state Department of Public Instruction.

Among the positions lost, 35 percent were teacher jobs and 33 percent were teacher assistant jobs.

It's the first time since the Depression that North Carolina schools have cut teacher positions during a time of enrollment growth, education officials said Wednesday.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/08/31/1450640/states-public-schools-have-cut.html#ixzz1Wfte4KrR

This leaves the last category of great writing. I would first like to distinguish that for writing in history, the level of writing may not involve as much creativity as Tolkien or Rowling used to create vast magical worlds, but rather that the writer can provide both enough information and, in more primary sources, vivid accounts capable of summoning an image of someone reading years afterwords.

"Joseph Montgolfier later said he had tried Lavoisier's 'gaz' unsuccessfully, but discovered the principle of hot air by watching his wife's chemise inflating when she hung it over the hearth to dry. He made several small experimental 'aerostats', finally adopting a pear-shaped balloon, with a wide neck that could be lowered over a fire. The Montgolfiers described it memorably as 'putting a cloud in a paper bag'.

-Richard Holmes, describing the invention of the hot air balloon from Chapter 3 of The Age of Wonder