Backroom Errata

[Montmorency]

I think I get what you mean.

I think I've found a good comparison to illustrate: HP Lovecraft (colonial Anglo) and TE Lawrence (British Anglo).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._June_1934.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...e_lawrence.jpg

Tell me you don't see it? Now the next step if my notion has any validity would be to identify any systematic proportion among the general population of this facial model - maybe it's just a weird coincidence. (Well, the proper first step would be to parametrize the putative facial model but...)

Koreans and Latin Americans can have similar skin tones, so in the absence of any relevant groups of Asians to join, a group of Latin Americans (or natives) would in practice be the group where his physical appearance would be the most similar to the other members.

Considering the great variation in appearance within the groups "Asian" and "Latin American" (of whom the latter comprise everything from overwhelmingly European-ancestry countries like Argentina and overwhelmingly Amerindian (and minimally-admixed mestizo) countries like Bolivia), that's too sweeping an assessment. At any rate, it isn't helpful to dignify sorting by appearance or color.

I would like to emphasize that in the five-factor model, the starting point is not that the aspects of a person's personality that it describes tend to be heavily affected by a person's background (the model is not supposed to describe a person's personality exhaustively, at any rate). In theory, a preference for the same holiday destination every year is independent of your current and past wealth; though I suppose greater wealth could lead to more expensive habits. If you are very rich, maybe you'll take a cruise in your personal yacht to the same five destinations every year instead of sticking to just one destination. The key is a preference for doing the same rather than trying something new.

I also want to emphasize that the five-factor model does not operate with dichotomies; for every facet, most people fall somewhere in the middle between the two extremes, but it is easier to understand the facets by looking at the extremes.

Now for why I think he has that personality trait: one thing that really stood out, is the language. It is possible he has difficulty learning Korean, but my theory is that he doesn't really care to learn Korean, which would be consistent with a low score on this facet. His personal style, like the way he dresses, also seems a bit like he is stilling living his old life. Granted, if a person has been forced to live a very different life, they could try to hold onto something from their old life because it relates to their identity, even if they have a general preference for trying out new things.

He did say that he was a "little bit" excited to get out of his old lifestyle; but it also seems that this excitement was about leaving behind a life he didn't really enjoy rather than being excited at the prospect of moving to a new country and integrating into a new culture.

In personality theory, I think success is generally associated with the dimension of conscientiousness. The facet of ambition, which I mentioned above, belongs to this dimension. He could have scores that are average or above on some other facets of that dimension as well, such as self-discipline (cf. his reference to "hard work").

OK, like any model of personality insight more data (interview material, professional examination) is better, but I understand where you're coming from.

It's not a scale between one and three, it's a scale between something like one and seven.

You have the nobility, broken down into the Royal family, containing the Cyning and the Æthelings, his sons, brothers, nephews etc., then the mass of the þeȝns from whom the king selected his Æorldormon and from which class came most of the non-monastic bishops. Then, below them, you have the mass of the ceorles, who were themselves subdivided into a, the geneats - the "peasant aristocracy" distinguished from the lower Þeȝns by being primarily landholders and farmers as opposed to warriors, the mass of men - the kotsetlas - and the bottom rung, just hanging on, the geburs who were tenant farmers often economically tied to a given estate.

Then you have slaves, mostly non-Saxons.

You'r just engaging in reductio ad absurdem - a geneat would be indistinguishable from a less affluent Þeȝn in the street or in the shieldwall - both mean "follower" or "retainer", the distinction is not one of wealth or even necessarily practical function, both could serve as landlords, the distinction is that one has access to the royal family in a direct way (in theory) and the other does not.In Anglo-Saxon England its all about personal relationship - status is defined (formally) by who you owe your loyalty to and in what context. Þeȝns are warriors first and foremost and it is from this that they derive their status and their privileged access to the royal court, not wealth, not even necessarily birth. Oh, I know you're going to mention Huscarls next - so let me preempt you by pointing out that huscarls are not self-supporting, they're professional paid soldiers as opposed to simply being retainers. Þeȝns were also farmers with their own lands who equipped themselves out of their own pockets. Incidentally, both þeȝns and ceorles fought in the Fyrd together as mounted infantry, in addition to weapons and armour they had to provide their own horses. That's why the property qualification for a þeȝn was five hides, or the equivalent of five small-holdings, because every hundred was required to provide one man for every five hides - þeȝns were that man for their own landholdings, ceorles might send someone else.

This is well-worn ground by now, and it reinforces the logical necessity of the proposition that churls are the lowest class of freemen. The internal structure of the churl class does not change the external hierarchy!

"You've lost credibility" was what you said.

You don't like it when people call you out for your bad behaviour, well suck it up - you once told Furnunculus his "caution [was] not respectable."

Your bad behavior was the problem here!

Outside the US class is inherited regardless of wealth. Go re-watch Downton Abbey, it's a study in class relationships, right down to the perpetually awkward position of the Early's American wife and brother-in-law.

All class at all times is a matter of networking above wealth. Formal title applies to very few humans today, and it's not the meaningful thing.

So you acknowledge that the most wealthy in America, those "holding the reigns" so to speak were not born into it. Do you understand how different this is to a class-system where people are born into a certain class and that defines their social standing? Do you understand that the only was to access a higher class in those circumstances is through personal patronage of the person at the top of that class (the monarch) and no amount of money will ever get you in?

Almost all megamillionaires and billionaires have been created in the past two or three generations, because of contingencies in the global economy that are fluid. Even adjusted for inflation there were almost no such people a hundred years ago. You're born into it after the first generation, similar to how an immigrant family in America will always give birth to lifelong Americans regardless of their own original status.

But before that, it's applicable at all points in modern history. If, for instance, you've read anything about early America you'll notice that people from wealthy, landed, educated families were falling into destitution all the time. Some even died penniless or in debtor's prison. Yet even so they were typically able to maintain access to capital, professional opportunities, other influential bourgeois people, political power, etc. Why? Because they were from the "right" families! Ain't you ever heard of the Boston Brahmins? And that's just New England, it was all over the country like that. The Southern slavers, who were in any sense an aristocratic throwback, had almost all their wealth destroyed in the Civil War. Guess what happened in the aftermath? Most of those slavers picked up and re-enslaved the blacks and rebuilt their wealth and political power. With the invention of sharecropping where planters could not rely on slaves they literally transformed the blacks into serf-like tenant farmers, who could leave or demand remuneration at the risk of their lives.

To this day descendants of the aristocratic families are disproportionately represented in Southern business and politics.

Privilege of wealth is not privilege of class. They aren't the same and your insistence on trying to equate them demonstrates that a refusal to believe that class works differently outside a Republic like the US. Compare the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans.

You don't understand how class works today.

And this is the part you refuse to accept, Anglo-Saxon society doesn't work like that'. Status is conferred by access to the King, he decides if you're a þeȝn or a ceorl - and then everyone else agrees with him. So how do you make the change? Pretty simple really, you demonstrate loyalty to the king and an ability to kill his enemies. Anglo-Saxon society is totally militarised, all free men serve, and even priests and bishops can be found in the shield wall. If you don't have the requisite five hides, well, the king will just [I]give you land.

Again, this doesn't affect the analogy because the analogy does not depend on these specific relationships.

In this society deeds grant access and access grants wealth. Wealth does not, by itself, grant access.

A wealthy enough landowner will always have access to the king, unless it's war. Obviously.

You're engaging in Marxist historiography again, insisting on seeing other times and places in the context of your own society. In this case you're comparing an absolute monarchy with a completely militarised (free) population against a largely demilitarised republic. Apples and oranges.

Wrong. This is because you fundamentally don't understand the comparison. I don't think I can help you.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This is well-worn ground by now, and it reinforces the logical necessity of the proposition that churls are the lowest class of freemen. The internal structure of the churl class does not change the external hierarchy!

OK, so... what?

"There's always been a 1%"?

Your bad behavior was the problem here!

If by bad behaviour you mean "trolling" that's just slanderous.

I'm not trolling you, I'm reflecting you, I tried being polite and you ignored me, so now I'm deliberately being antagonistic because it's all you respond to. You don't value good manners or compassion, so I refuse to avail you of those things. It is a waste of my time.

All class at all times is a matter of networking above wealth. Formal title applies to very few humans today, and it's not the meaningful thing.

Formal title has never applied to many humans. In England only a few hundred people at any one time have ever held formal title, excepting baronets and knights. You're avoiding the core point here - in this case it's not about "networking" but about access to one specific person, a person who in all instances claimed decent from a pagan God, Woden. This was true for all Anglo-Saxon Kings from all seven kingdoms, excepting possibly the last, Harold II.

Almost all megamillionaires and billionaires have been created in the past two or three generations, because of contingencies in the global economy that are fluid. Even adjusted for inflation there were almost no such people a hundred years ago. You're born into it after the first generation, similar to how an immigrant family in America will always give birth to lifelong Americans regardless of their own original status.

Debatable - the globalised economy has had certain perverse effects on human society. The landed aristocracy held a strangle hold on the lives of all people prior to the French Revolution. It's difficult to quantify their wealth in today's terms, or the extent of their political power.

But before that, it's applicable at all points in modern history. If, for instance, you've read anything about early America you'll notice that people from wealthy, landed, educated families were falling into destitution all the time. Some even died penniless or in debtor's prison. Yet even so they were typically able to maintain access to capital, professional opportunities, other influential bourgeois people, political power, etc. Why? Because they were from the "right" families! Ain't you ever heard of the Boston Brahmins? And that's just New England, it was all over the country like that. The Southern slavers, who were in any sense an aristocratic throwback, had almost all their wealth destroyed in the Civil War. Guess what happened in the aftermath? Most of those slavers picked up and re-enslaved the blacks and rebuilt their wealth and political power. With the invention of sharecropping where planters could not rely on slaves they literally transformed the blacks into serf-like tenant farmers, who could leave or demand remuneration at the risk of their lives.

To this day descendants of the aristocratic families are disproportionately represented in Southern business and politics.

Well, technically, modern history begins with the Renaissance, aka the Early Modern Period. The American South is certainly a fascinating culture, one which established a landed aristocracy and a slave-caste based on race whilst also managing to distinguish between that aristocracy and the mass of non-slaves. On the other hand, we have an untitled-aristocracy here too. When I visited the Trecarrell estate with my mother over the summer the owner, whom you would call a "country squire" was telling us about the time be managed to talk his way into Lambeth Palace library to see manuscripts relating to the manor house.

You don't understand how class works today.

On the contrary, I understand it works differently outside the US. One is reminded of the rather amusing story of when Her Majesty visited Normandy in the 1960's, I believe it was then. The local peasants lined the streets, doffed their caps and shouted "Viva la Duchess!" to the considerable embarrassment of her French hosts.

Again, this doesn't affect the analogy because the analogy does not depend on these specific relationships.

The blogger's analogy was between the modern American who is disenfranchised but doesn't realise it because he votes and the churl imagined to be disenfranchised but doesn't realise it because he's better than a slave. Well, the churl did realise it, and he was still better off than the modern American.

A wealthy enough landowner will always have access to the king, unless it's war. Obviously.

This ignores the point I referred to a while back, where the king owns all the land, so it's up to him if you're wealthy or not. This is true in early Anglo-Saxon society and later post-conquest. It's less true in late Anglo-Saxon society where landholding (as opposed to renting) has become much more prevalent but the central point stands. The only really practical way to get that wealthy that you have access by default is to get into the aristocracy because your ability to acquire land and wealth is dependent on the king or a powerful magnate.

A really good example of this in Early Modern times is Thomas Cromwell, a more enduring example is Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Brandon's father was a knight, Sir William, who was of sufficiently low standing that he was accused of raping a "gentlewoman" which isn't something that happens to genuinely noble people in late-medieval England as a rule. he got off. Cromwell, of course, was just a good lawyer who amassed fabulous wealth and titles under Henry VIII until he was offed by some actual aristocrats for basically being too common.

Wrong. This is because you fundamentally don't understand the comparison. I don't think I can help you.

There is no meaningful comparison, that's the point. Your view is no more applicable than Greyblades labelling Anglo-Saxon society "pre-feudal". In both cases you're drawing a false comparison that is based on common (and therefore shallow) modern understanding of the historical context.

We are not living in a post Anglo-Saxon society, we haven't been for centuries. We're living in a post-Roman society. Don't believe me, look up how votes for magistrates were conducted in the Roman Republic and compare it to the Primary process for selecting presidential candidates in the US, never mind the junk food (including pizza).

Remember, this started because you asked for my opinion. My opinion is, and was, that the point being made by the blogger is banal and the comparison is misconstrued. Don't like that opinion? well, you'll remember not to ask in future, then, won't you?

[Greyblades]

There is no meaningful comparison, that's the point. Your view is no more applicable than Greyblades labelling Anglo-Saxon society "pre-feudal". In both cases you're drawing a false comparison that is based on common (and therefore shallow) modern understanding of the historical context.

Elucidate, historian. Was the norman conquests not a substanstive enough societal change to consider a book mark in history to lable pre and post?

[Montmorency]

OK, so... what?

"There's always been a 1%"?

I don't like the application of the "1%" concept, which is just a slogan, but sure, whatever.

If by bad behaviour you mean "trolling" that's just slanderous.

I'm not trolling you, I'm reflecting you, I tried being polite and you ignored me, so now I'm deliberately being antagonistic because it's all you respond to. You don't value good manners or compassion, so I refuse to avail you of those things. It is a waste of my time.

There have been about two instances this year in which your thought process was so outrageously defective that I tried to unmistakably and compassionately impress on you the severity of your mistakes. I hoped you would take it to heart and check yourself. If from that you've learned only to double down and preemptively attack, well, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, won't get fooled again.

Formal title has never applied to many humans. In England only a few hundred people at any one time have ever held formal title, excepting baronets and knights. You're avoiding the core point here - in this case it's not about "networking" but about access to one specific person, a person who in all instances claimed decent from a pagan God, Woden. This was true for all Anglo-Saxon Kings from all seven kingdoms, excepting possibly the last, Harold II.

The way you speak makes it seems as though you think kings were the sole and unlimited sources of political power in pre-modern times. Who you knew and what you could do for each other has always been an organizing principle of complex societies.

Debatable - the globalised economy has had certain perverse effects on human society. The landed aristocracy held a strangle hold on the lives of all people prior to the French Revolution. It's difficult to quantify their wealth in today's terms, or the extent of their political power.

I don't know about Mansa Musa sprinkling gold here and there, but there was a coherent monetary framework in place in the 18th century. It's not debatable that there were relatively few megamillionaires and billionaires, adjusted for inflation, before the world wars and globalization.

Well, technically, modern history begins with the Renaissance, aka the Early Modern Period. The American South is certainly a fascinating culture, one which established a landed aristocracy and a slave-caste based on race whilst also managing to distinguish between that aristocracy and the mass of non-slaves. On the other hand, we have an untitled-aristocracy here too. When I visited the Trecarrell estate with my mother over the summer the owner, whom you would call a "country squire" was telling us about the time be managed to talk his way into Lambeth Palace library to see manuscripts relating to the manor house.

The important takeaway is that de facto hereditary class has been big throughout American history, it is cultivated and perpetuated through interrelationships among the elite as much as wealth per se, and wealth can always be obtained through mutual services and leveraging of prestige and privilege. As has been increasingly pointed out, even the entire American upper-middle-class looks ever more like a hereditary class in practice.

On the contrary, I understand it works differently outside the US. One is reminded of the rather amusing story of when Her Majesty visited Normandy in the 1960's, I believe it was then. The local peasants lined the streets, doffed their caps and shouted "Viva la Duchess!" to the considerable embarrassment of her French hosts.

You always return to your understanding of modern English class. Without even engaging on those terms, you should realize that the world is bigger than England.

Though separately I would be interested if you can find any other examples of French "peasants" cheering Queen Elizabeth. She visits Normandy frequently enough, after all, usually to commemorate WW2 events. Come to think of it, I wonder if that has any relevance...

The blogger's analogy was between the modern American who is disenfranchised but doesn't realise it because he votes and the churl imagined to be disenfranchised but doesn't realise it because he's better than a slave. Well, the churl did realise it, and he was still better off than the modern American.

A certain kind of modern American doesn't realize it because he has access to consumer choice, and to tribal opiates like god and guns.

If you want to say the churl was better off than a modern American or Englishman, that's a separate topic, and it will have to admit much more information than just class theory. I would agree only on some very narrow constructions. Such as I already mentioned, that on some measures of inequality the churl could have been closer to his lord than the modern analogues.To the extent that you reacted against any subtext that the modern American is 'declining' or 'degenerating' into churlhood, I was and am willing to accommodate that.

This ignores the point I referred to a while back, where the king owns all the land, so it's up to him if you're wealthy or not. This is true in early Anglo-Saxon society and later post-conquest. It's less true in late Anglo-Saxon society where landholding (as opposed to renting) has become much more prevalent but the central point stands. The only really practical way to get that wealthy that you have access by default is to get into the aristocracy because your ability to acquire land and wealth is dependent on the king or a powerful magnate.

The king owning all land is a legal fiction, not an intrinsic power dynamic. The land is not a magical organism that responds to divinely-vested authority. Kingship is not a unit of power.

A really good example of this in Early Modern times is Thomas Cromwell, a more enduring example is Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Brandon's father was a knight, Sir William, who was of sufficiently low standing that he was accused of raping a "gentlewoman" which isn't something that happens to genuinely noble people in late-medieval England as a rule. he got off. Cromwell, of course, was just a good lawyer who amassed fabulous wealth and titles under Henry VIII until he was offed by some actual aristocrats for basically being too common.

Without refreshing my memory I believe there were some other conflicts ongoing beyond umbrage at Cromwell being a commoner.

Speaking of rape, elites, and the South, here's a wonderful little story:

Wade Hampton II was one of the big names among the Southern elite of the antebellum period. Hampton had four daughters. I'm just going to post something from Wiki without further comment.

Hampton's sister-in-law Catherine Fitzsimmons, a shy girl, at age 17 married James Henry Hammond, making him a wealthy man with her large dowry. He eventually owned more than 20 square miles of property and hundreds of slaves through wealth gained by this marriage. The families saw each other socially because of this relationship.

In 1843 Hampton learned that Hammond had sexually abused his daughters (Hammond's nieces) as teenagers and accused him when he was still governor, although nothing was written publicly.[2][3] As rumors of Hammond's behavior spread, he was socially ostracized[4] and his political career was derailed for a decade.[3] But, he recovered sufficient political standing to be elected in 1856 by the South Carolina legislature as US senator from the state. The Hampton daughters' reputations were irrevocably tarnished. None of the daughters ever married.[3]

Hammond's Secret and Sacred Diaries (not published until 1989) reveal that his sexual appetites were varied. He described, without embarrassment, his "familiarities and dalliances"[1] over two years with four teenage nieces, daughters of his sister-in-law Ann Fitzsimmons and her husband Wade Hampton II.[1][11] He blamed his behavior on what he described as the seductiveness of the "extremely affectionate" young women.[1] The scandal "derailed his political career" for a decade to come after Wade Hampton III publicly accused him in 1843, when Hammond was governor.[12] He was "ostracized by polite society" for some time, but in the late 1850s, he was nonetheless elected by the state legislature as US senator.[13]

Hammond's damage to the girls was far-reaching. Their social prospects were destroyed. Considered to have tarnished social reputations by his behavior, none of the four ever married.[1]

Hammond was also known to have repeatedly raped two female slaves, one of whom may have been his own daughter. He raped the first slave, Sally Johnson, when she was 18 years old.[1] Such behavior was not uncommon among white men of power at the time; their mixed-race children were born into slavery and remained there unless the fathers took action to free them.[13] Later, Hammond raped Sally Johnson's daughter, Louisa, who was a year old baby when he bought her mother; the first rape apparently occurred when Louisa was 12; she also bore several of his children.

His wife left him for a few years, after he repeatedly raped the enslaved girl, taking their own children with her. She later returned to her husband.[1]

There is no meaningful comparison, that's the point.

If you think it's not insightful, that's fine. I offered you that. But it's not a false comparison.

We are not living in a post Anglo-Saxon society, we haven't been for centuries. We're living in a post-Roman society. Don't believe me, look up how votes for magistrates were conducted in the Roman Republic and compare it to the Primary process for selecting presidential candidates in the US, never mind the junk food (including pizza).

If there is a sense that Russia is "post-Soviet," that is not the sense in which any part of the world is "post-Roman." It's the height of banality to repeat the fact that Roman civilization has influenced subsequent civilizations.

Remember, this started because you asked for my opinion. My opinion is, and was, that the point being made by the blogger is banal and the comparison is misconstrued. Don't like that opinion? well, you'll remember not to ask in future, then, won't you?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I don't like the application of the "1%" concept, which is just a slogan, but sure, whatever.

Well, thanes might have been a bit more than 1%, but the top, the people who might become earls, they were probably less than 1%. Probably less than 100 people.

There have been about two instances this year in which your thought process was so outrageously defective that I tried to unmistakably and compassionately impress on you the severity of your mistakes. I hoped you would take it to heart and check yourself. If from that you've learned only to double down and preemptively attack, well, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, won't get fooled again.

There's been at least one instance where you've completely misconstrued my point to the extent you spent pages fighting me on a non-issue. You need to adjust your perspective on other people, generally.

I believe a wide range of things you consider insane and you likewise. You need to just accept that and stop worrying about it. If I worried about all the insane stuff you and Beskar said I'd actually go insane.

The way you speak makes it seems as though you think kings were the sole and unlimited sources of political power in pre-modern times. Who you knew and what you could do for each other has always been an organizing principle of complex societies.

The king was the exclusive font of power and law. This is still technically true in the UK (but not other modern European monarchies), hence all the recent contortions over the prorogation. I could go into all of the machinations of how this worked in practice but despite what you might call "political realities" it was also a reality that everything rested on one man, and it was exclusively a man in Anglo-Saxon England, from a royal family (not just a noble one).

I don't know about Mansa Musa sprinkling gold here and there, but there was a coherent monetary framework in place in the 18th century. It's not debatable that there were relatively few megamillionaires and billionaires, adjusted for inflation, before the world wars and globalization.

You mean when he destroyed the entire economy of Egypt (no mean feat) twice? we live in a highly monetised society, where wealth is very mobile. In the medieval world you had people with thousands of serfs, multiple massive castles, who controlled the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of people directly and through their vassals. Money's less of a thing when you have direct control of physical resources and people.

The important takeaway is that de facto hereditary class has been big throughout American history, it is cultivated and perpetuated through interrelationships among the elite as much as wealth per se, and wealth can always be obtained through mutual services and leveraging of prestige and privilege. As has been increasingly pointed out, even the entire American upper-middle-class looks ever more like a hereditary class in practice.

Ah, I see, you have confused "no upper class" with no class. I have s social class, I can't lose it, I inherited it from my father and I wear it all the time. It allows me to do things that perhaps someone of a lower class couldn't get away with - although that's probably less true today than ten years ago.

You always return to your understanding of modern English class. Without even engaging on those terms, you should realize that the world is bigger than England.

Though separately I would be interested if you can find any other examples of French "peasants" cheering Queen Elizabeth. She visits Normandy frequently enough, after all, usually to commemorate WW2 events. Come to think of it, I wonder if that has any relevance...

That anecdote was about French class - you know France - that place where all the wine is made by people living in castles? I mostly compare American class to English class because it is the closest point of contact for you.

A certain kind of modern American doesn't realize it because he has access to consumer choice, and to tribal opiates like god and guns.

You want to distance yourself from Marx you shouldn't use his language.

If you want to say the churl was better off than a modern American or Englishman, that's a separate topic, and it will have to admit much more information than just class theory. I would agree only on some very narrow constructions. Such as I already mentioned, that on some measures of inequality the churl could have been closer to his lord than the modern analogues.To the extent that you reacted against any subtext that the modern American is 'declining' or 'degenerating' into churlhood, I was and am willing to accommodate that.

That would have been a more interesting discussion, but instead you fixate on fixing the churl in an analogous position where he is "low class". In a slave-owning society slaves are low-class, free men tend to be an actual cut above.

The king owning all land is a legal fiction, not an intrinsic power dynamic. The land is not a magical organism that responds to divinely-vested authority. Kingship is not a unit of power.

There's very little evidence people saw it that way. Very few bad kings were openly defied or deposed - thing had to get really bad for that to happen. This is a society where the majority of people believe the King actually is anointed by God. I realsie that might be difficult to wrap your head around but there's really no evidence this was the upper class in cahoots to trick the poor people.

Indeed, the concept of a legal fiction isn't really a concept compaitible with the medieval worldview when the flawed "earthly" law is meant to be shaped by God's law.

Without refreshing my memory I believe there were some other conflicts ongoing beyond umbrage at Cromwell being a commoner.

There was a tug of war over reformist and traditionalist bishops and Cromwell was on the losing reformist side (it swung back the other way later) - there was also his failed marriage to Anne of Cleves. Overall, though, if Cromwell had been nobly born he probably would have been disgraced rather than executed.

Speaking of rape, elites, and the South, here's a wonderful little story:

Wade Hampton II was one of the big names among the Southern elite of the antebellum period. Hampton had four daughters. I'm just going to post something from Wiki without further comment.

Charming

If you think it's not insightful, that's fine. I offered you that. But it's not a false comparison.

I dissagree - I don't think there's a meaningful comparison here. Not beyond "some people are poor, some are rich."

If there is a sense that Russia is "post-Soviet," that is not the sense in which any part of the world is "post-Roman." It's the height of banality to repeat the fact that Roman civilization has influenced subsequent civilizations.

Seriously, look up the way the Tribal Assembly worked - then come back.

[Montmorency]

I believe a wide range of things you consider insane and you likewise. You need to just accept that and stop worrying about it. If I worried about all the insane stuff you and Beskar said I'd actually go insane

In the most recent example of you attacking a source, it wasn't a matter of 'here's how we disagree and why', it was indefensible. It considered it disgusting in its own right, all the more so if meant to screw with me. Don't you perceive any variations in my approach to you? If it all seems monotonous then you've escaped the intended effect entirely.

That would have been a more interesting discussion, but instead you fixate on fixing the churl in an analogous position where he is "low class". In a slave-owning society slaves are low-class, free men tend to be an actual cut above.

Yes, low-class freemen. Above slaves. Below the rest. It's really straightforward semantics.

The king was the exclusive font of power and law. This is still technically true in the UK (but not other modern European monarchies), hence all the recent contortions over the prorogation. I could go into all of the machinations of how this worked in practice but despite what you might call "political realities" it was also a reality that everything rested on one man, and it was exclusively a man in Anglo-Saxon England, from a royal family (not just a noble one).

There's very little evidence people saw it that way. Very few bad kings were openly defied or deposed - thing had to get really bad for that to happen. This is a society where the majority of people believe the King actually is anointed by God. I realsie that might be difficult to wrap your head around but there's really no evidence this was the upper class in cahoots to trick the poor people.

Indeed, the concept of a legal fiction isn't really a concept compaitible with the medieval worldview when the flawed "earthly" law is meant to be shaped by God's law.

Now,

You mean when he destroyed the entire economy of Egypt (no mean feat) twice? we live in a highly monetised society, where wealth is very mobile. In the medieval world you had people with thousands of serfs, multiple massive castles, who controlled the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of people directly and through their vassals. Money's less of a thing when you have direct control of physical resources and people.

Exactly. No king can directly control the whole mass of the population. Prior to the civil bureaucracy he has intermediaries, some of whom are high nobility. These individuals have practical independent power as a byproduct of these resources and authorities, and through their dealings and intrigues with one another. No noble, no king, is either omnipotent or invincible. That a king isn't overthrown is no implication that he rules nothing but meek subordinates who have no concept of personal advantage.

Ah, I see, you have confused "no upper class" with no class. I have s social class, I can't lose it, I inherited it from my father and I wear it all the time. It allows me to do things that perhaps someone of a lower class couldn't get away with - although that's probably less true today than ten years ago.

?

That anecdote was about French class - you know France - that place where all the wine is made by people living in castles? I mostly compare American class to English class because it is the closest point of contact for you.

Expand on it. What were the peasants (who? how many?) doing when Elizabeth visited this year, or all the other years? Chinese tourists also cheer when they see the Queen.

You want to distance yourself from Marx you shouldn't use his language.

Is this like that Islamophobic meme where if you recite a certain phrase you become a Muslim against your will? If you say "opiate", "bourgeois", "dialectic" to a mirror in a dark room you become a Marxist?

Charming

Patriarchy.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In the most recent example of you attacking a source, it wasn't a matter of 'here's how we disagree and why', it was indefensible. It considered it disgusting in its own right, all the more so if meant to screw with me. Don't you perceive any variations in my approach to you? If it all seems monotonous then you've escaped the intended effect entirely.

No, that was yet another example of you jumping all over me because you don't like my opinion.

"Source look dodgy, possibly dishonest" is an opinion on a source. I don't like shoddy historiography, you're reading too much into it.

Yes, low-class freemen. Above slaves. Below the rest. It's really straightforward semantics.

Who are "the rest"? They're a minority. In reality you have slaves, the Royal family, the Thanes, and the churls are "the rest".

Now,

Exactly. No king can directly control the whole mass of the population. Prior to the civil bureaucracy he has intermediaries, some of whom are high nobility. These individuals have practical independent power as a byproduct of these resources and authorities, and through their dealings and intrigues with one another. No noble, no king, is either omnipotent or invincible. That a king isn't overthrown is no implication that he rules nothing but meek subordinates who have no concept of personal advantage.

This is an anachronistic interpretation of medieval society, it grossly under-estimates the medieval reverence for monarchy. This is a society where good people burned other people alive for having the wrong beliefs.

?

I suppose you think I'm joking again, or trolling.

Expand on it. What were the peasants (who? how many?) doing when Elizabeth visited this year, or all the other years? Chinese tourists also cheer when they see the Queen.

I might go look it up, since you asked nicely.

Is this like that Islamophobic meme where if you recite a certain phrase you become a Muslim against your will? If you say "opiate", "bourgeois", "dialectic" to a mirror in a dark room you become a Marxist?

No, I just think it sounds silly. Seeing religion as the "opiate of the masses" and referring to historical wealthy, non noble, classes anachronistically as "bourgeois" makes you look like a Marxist. You claim not to be a Marxist, though, even though you look like one.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Elucidate, historian. Was the norman conquests not a substanstive enough societal change to consider a book mark in history to lable pre and post?

Oh, no it was, and it was catastrophic, the economy, the administration utterly collapsed under Norman incompetence. England's famed coinage which had been 95% pure silver (what became sterling silver) since probably the time of Offa of Mercia was debased.

However, when you describe it as "pre-feudal" you're perpetuating a post-medieval myth that before the Normans came we were living in some sort of Tolkienesque idyll. In reality, even before the Conquest every Englishman needed a liege lord and whilst it wasn't strict Norman feudalism it wasn't exactly "not feudal", though. It was terrible principally because the English became, to quote Robert Bartlett, a "subject people".

So, we should describe the period before the Normans as "pre-Norman" or "pre-Conquest" as opposed to "pre-feudal".