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hogmartin posted:Blaarg, combat death doesn't weird me out but this stuff does. It's not rational; getting an arrow on some godforsaken 12th century plain or bleeding out from grenade fragments on an island you've never heard of is probably a lot less pleasant, but there's something creepy about "kneel down and say some prayers, some guy will cut your head off or maybe bash you with a hammer" that makes my fuckin' skin crawl. edit: because it's not just "some dude," if your citystate has the right of Blood Court it has its own executioner, which means it's some dude you've known your entire life HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 09:38
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Hogge Wild posted:I think that the horizontal cut was reserved for VIPs. and they did it well into the 19th century too  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Ludwig_Sand
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Jul 12, 2016 09:41
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:BTW were executioners in Europe a family profession? I know it was for the Sanson clan in France. Yep. Executioners were seen as "unhonourable", so noone in their right mind would pick this up as a job except when they came from a line of executioners anyway, then they didn't really have a choice. Being unhonourable was contagious btw, and that's why people tried to avoid too much contact with any individuals coming from an unhonourable background. That didn't stop executioners from sometimes being well-paid and -esteemed individuals for whom the rest of the community would have nothing but respect... but they'd still not shake their hands when meeting them. In other cases they were literally at the bottom of society; the city law of Augsburg from 1276 calls the executioner a "son of a whore", and when in the 16th century a craftsman in Basel got drunk and sat together with the executioner in the inn, he was kicked out of the guild and killed himself afterwards. There were many other rules executioners had to follow, like only using specially designated seats in the church or the inn (well away from the rest of the townspeople, I'd guess... in some areas it was common to reserve a three-legged chair for the in the inns which was supposed to symbolise the gallows, and their steins weren't allowed to have lids for some reason), only being allowed to hunt wolves and nothing else, in many cities also having additional unhonourable duties like policing prostitution or cleaning the loos. Later on many executioners would take on additional jobs as surgeons, because they already were well familiar with human anatomy and because he was the master of the execution sites, which were seen as mysterious places whose magic would aid him in this line of work. This is why for a long time there was a big social gulf between proper doctors and mere surgeons, even though the latter often knew at least as much or even more about medicine than the former. System Metternich fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 09:50
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That looks rather unsafe for the dude in front.
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Jul 12, 2016 10:07
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The Lone Badger posted:That looks rather unsafe for the dude in front. apprentices are the undergrads of the early modern
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Jul 12, 2016 10:09
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Hegel just posted that they did it to show off. Dude was probably the perfect cross section of sober/dishonorable to be designated head-holder guy.
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Jul 12, 2016 10:10
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Re: The Somme. Hunter-Bunter seems to have completely hosed up his attacks, why is he still in charge? Wasn't the area he was attacking pretty much a complete failure?
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Jul 12, 2016 11:42
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There is a Finnish saying "pukeutuu kuin pyöveli pyhäpäivänä" (to dress up like a headsman for a holy day), describing especially ostentatious clothing. At some point executioners could only enter the church once every year and they would take care to dress especially well for that day.
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Jul 12, 2016 12:19
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Comstar posted:Re: The Somme. Hunter-Bunter seems to have completely hosed up his attacks, why is he still in charge? Wasn't the area he was attacking pretty much a complete failure? Haig has basically just gone "I am too busy for this poo poo, I'll deal with you later". VIII Corps has been put under Reserve Army and General Gough is under strict orders to not let the kids out of the playpen. Beaumont Hamel is, at the moment, supremely irrelevant to how the battle is developing; there's no risk of them just deciding to attack again without orders, so the existing staff as well carry on for the time being until a proper inquest can be held and blame apportioned. If it turns out that none of them are fit for purpose, this at least gives the Staff enough time to identify a suitable number of candidates for promotion, and then to identify more replacement brigade commanders and battalion commanders who are going to have to fill the knock-on vacancies lower down. Compare this with his immediate sacking of two divisional commanders after the first attack on Mametz Wood; the capture of the wood was directly relevant to the push for the Second Line, so he takes immediate action because they're going to have to attack here again, very soon.
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Jul 12, 2016 12:23
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I have this on my to-read list, it sounds cool: The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
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Jul 12, 2016 14:46
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Jul 12, 2016 15:06
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hogmartin posted:Blaarg, combat death doesn't weird me out but this stuff does. It's not rational; getting an arrow on some godforsaken 12th century plain or bleeding out from grenade fragments on an island you've never heard of is probably a lot less pleasant, but there's something creepy about "kneel down and say some prayers, some guy will cut your head off or maybe bash you with a hammer" that makes my fuckin' skin crawl. I have the same reaction and I think it's the foreknowledge and anticipation. Some dude catching a grenade might know he's in mortal peril but right until it happens he thinks he can get out. The dude walking to the gallows knows what's coming and has time to reflect on that.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:45
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I'm the early modern crocs.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:48
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LordSaturn posted:I'm the early modern crocs. Doing research on the history and styles of footwear, I love seeing how styles transfer between "traditionally" male and female every century, sometimes with just a few decades before something becomes exclusively masculine or feminine in society. Shoes were once considered feminine in Europe! Men wore boots when outdoors while women wore smaller shoes without ankle support or a distinct heel. Some have traced the masculine wearing of daintier shoes to rebellious college students.
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Jul 12, 2016 15:54
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is there anything to the claim that san Francisco became a gay capital because of the large numbers of gay servicemen discharged there after the war? I see this said a lot but I've never seen any actual research supporting it
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Jul 12, 2016 16:34
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bewbies posted:is there anything to the claim that san Francisco became a gay capital because of the large numbers of gay servicemen discharged there after the war? Well that's a new one to me, but it could be an interesting little story if only tangentially related to military history. Why wouldn't, say, San Diego or Norfolk VA have turned out the same, then? In anecdotal experience, gay people seem to be distributed at roughly the same ratio in the military as anywhere else, so I'm not sure where the theory that discharging a bunch of ex-draftees is dropping a big ol' gay bomb on the city comes from.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:01
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bewbies posted:is there anything to the claim that san Francisco became a gay capital because of the large numbers of gay servicemen discharged there after the war? There's a pretty comprehensive article of Wikipedia about LGBT culture in San Francisco. Apparently the first LGBT subculture (as far as you can speak about that in this time) formed in the mid-19th century, when during the gold rush tens of thousands of young men came together in a frontier town where both official presence was relatively weak and soon a general attitude of "anything goes" developed. This changed again in the lat 19th century, when a number of "public decency" laws were enacted that were aimed to suppress the local LGBT culture and especially cross-dressing. In the 20s and 30s, the first "proper" LGBT subculture as we would call it today formed in the town, but apparently WW2 had, if anything, even an averse effect on it, because during and after the war, military police came down hard on gay bars and the like. During the 50s San Francisco (re-?)established its reputation as a relatively free and tolerant city, and a lot of people moved there just because of that. For the LGBT culture specifically it seems that this 1964 LIFE article which called San Francisco the "gay capital of America" was sortof the catalyst for giving the local LGBT scene the quasi-legendary status it has today.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:32
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hogmartin posted:Well that's a new one to me, but it could be an interesting little story if only tangentially related to military history. Why wouldn't, say, San Diego or Norfolk VA have turned out the same, then? In anecdotal experience, gay people seem to be distributed at roughly the same ratio in the military as anywhere else, so I'm not sure where the theory that discharging a bunch of ex-draftees is dropping a big ol' gay bomb on the city comes from. I think the theory is that the dischargees were disproportionately gay because some of them were dishonorably discharged specifically for being gay. Afterwards, they don't want to go back to Kansas and explain to Pop Pop why they got discharged, so they stay in San Fransisco. It makes sense as a just so story, but I dunno if there's been any real research.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:33
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Speaking of changing fashions and such, when was it that guys holding hands became a no-go? I vaguely remember reading that soldiers would walk hand-in-hand with their buddies back during... The Napoleonic Wars, maybe?
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Jul 12, 2016 17:41
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question: what's good software for constructing graphs? I got my hands on some hand numbers re Coastal command, and I feel a need to visualize them. This is from a couple pages back, but I like SigmaPlot. There's a 30 day free trial or if you're affiliated with an academic institution you might ask if they have a copy. Feel free to PM me if you have questions using SigmaPlot. Just don't do it in Excel, Excel is garbage for making good graphs.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:46
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Siivola posted:Speaking of changing fashions and such, when was it that guys holding hands became a no-go? I vaguely remember reading that soldiers would walk hand-in-hand with their buddies back during... The Napoleonic Wars, maybe? Depends where you are in the world. It's still pretty big in Africa and the Middle East at least.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:30
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Siivola posted:Speaking of changing fashions and such, when was it that guys holding hands became a no-go? I vaguely remember reading that soldiers would walk hand-in-hand with their buddies back during... The Napoleonic Wars, maybe? In Britain the Oscar Wilde trial supposedly had a lot to do with ending this habit. It was certainly very normal in a lot of early-mid Victorian Europe to express powerful and strong feelings of love towards other men, which is why there are a lot of tone deaf attempts to paint historical figures as homosexual, as well as a lot of individuals of whom it's fair to say they probably were closeted homosexuals looking back.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:37
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So... I just learned about a silent war film made about the Lost Battalion of Argonne. In 1919. With most of the roles in the film being given to the actual members of the battalion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Battalion_(1919_film)
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Jul 12, 2016 20:52
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Usually when I see reenactor pics like this, it seems like the texture of their costumes is different from how the clothes of that era looked in paintings. Would their clothes seem ridiculous to the people they're depicting-- like, the way it would seem to us if a 21st c. reenactor from the future was wearing a vague facsimile of jeans and a T-shirt both cut out of the same rough cloth? Or is this how it actually looked, and oil on canvas just doesn't show it?
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Jul 12, 2016 21:03
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swamp waste posted:Usually when I see reenactor pics like this, it seems like the texture of their costumes is different from how the clothes of that era looked in paintings. Would their clothes seem ridiculous to the people they're depicting-- like, the way it would seem to us if a 21st c. reenactor from the future was wearing a vague facsimile of jeans and a T-shirt both cut out of the same rough cloth? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91hysO_suRo here is a better one. for instance, their waistlines were at the level of the floating ribs, which makes a different sillhouette. this guy's pants, for instance, start far above his hips, not near them like ours http://www.getty.edu/art/collection...tine-1528-1530/
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Jul 12, 2016 21:06
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HEY GAL posted:yes, these are extremely poorly made, from cut/construction of shoes and clothing to fabric choice. If I remember correctly, pants didn't start to drop down to the hips until around the 1920s in the West. Belts were previously a symbol of masculinity or a military uniform, or had some functionality like hanging a holster/sheath or a cartridge belt. When pants started dropping, suspenders started being replaced by belts to hold pants up.
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Jul 12, 2016 21:50
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chitoryu12 posted:If I remember correctly, pants didn't start to drop down to the hips until around the 1920s in the West. Belts were previously a symbol of masculinity or a military uniform, or had some functionality like hanging a holster/sheath or a cartridge belt. When pants started dropping, suspenders started being replaced by belts to hold pants up.
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Jul 12, 2016 21:55
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Post cold-war question: Why does Russia still have a decent military while China does not?
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Jul 13, 2016 06:35
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Any suggestions on American Revolutionary War books about more of the war itself? I already know the political background and aftermath. I am more interested in the military campaigns of the Continental Army/United States military as an infancy.
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Jul 13, 2016 07:00
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Post cold-war question: Why does Russia still have a decent military while China does not? Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. China doesn't need to project much force very far to exert influence at great distances whereas Russia doesn't have that luxury. In short, much in the same way Germany doesn't have a massive military owing to their economic ties with almost everyone who might think about starting a war, China knows that the odds are likely that any potential belligerents have just as much to lose by getting into a war whose first casualties will be global financial and logistics gateways and can manage their military doctrine accordingly. To contrast, Russia invaded Ukraine and got their economy suplexed into a pile of roofing tacks by OPEC.
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Jul 13, 2016 07:04
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Trin Tragula posted:Haig has basically just gone "I am too busy for this poo poo, I'll deal with you later". VIII Corps has been put under Reserve Army and General Gough is under strict orders to not let the kids out of the playpen. Beaumont Hamel is, at the moment, supremely irrelevant to how the battle is developing; there's no risk of them just deciding to attack again without orders, so the existing staff as well carry on for the time being until a proper inquest can be held and blame apportioned. If it turns out that none of them are fit for purpose, this at least gives the Staff enough time to identify a suitable number of candidates for promotion, and then to identify more replacement brigade commanders and battalion commanders who are going to have to fill the knock-on vacancies lower down. Hey Trin, I finally started reading your day-by-day backlog in earnest (now that I'm finished with that enormous Wallenstein biography) and it's really amazing. WW1 in the day by day format is an absolutely inspired idea and it helps me place a vast, sprawling mishmash of things that happened into a single coherent narrative.
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Jul 13, 2016 08:12
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Ataxerxes posted:There is a Finnish saying "pukeutuu kuin pyöveli pyhäpäivänä" (to dress up like a headsman for a holy day), describing especially ostentatious clothing. At some point executioners could only enter the church once every year and they would take care to dress especially well for that day. Is this some archaic or regional thing? I have never heard such a saying.
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Jul 13, 2016 09:57
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Antti posted:Is this some archaic or regional thing? I have never heard such a saying. It's from a village that rests in the shadow of the Piz Palü.
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Jul 13, 2016 10:31
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Thanqol posted:(now that I'm finished with that enormous Wallenstein biography)
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Jul 13, 2016 10:37
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Disinterested posted:It was certainly very normal in a lot of early-mid Victorian Europe to express powerful and strong feelings of love towards other men, which is why there are a lot of tone deaf attempts to paint historical figures as homosexual, as well as a lot of individuals of whom it's fair to say they probably were closeted homosexuals looking back. I'm not saying there's no truth in that argument, but it always makes me slightly bristle because a similar argument is used to suggest that figures like James I (who was about as definitely homosexual as any figure in history) were straight. Similarly, many academics will airily explain away Shakespeare's Fair Youth sonnets saying that such love poems written by men to other men were common and socially accepted, but they always struggle to produce examples.
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Jul 13, 2016 11:02
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HEY GAL posted:what did you think? So it was Wallenstein: His Life narrated on your recommendation and I really enjoyed it. It painted a really compelling picture of the man and I think the real strength was how it handled his transition from the baddest rear end in the realm to a gout riddled old man trying to accomplish one last great thing before he died. It was a really humanizing picture of how someone's priorities can change as their life and health declines which stood as a really sweet counterpoint to the constant accusations of evil scheming that surround him. My favourite moment was when all of Wallenstein's men get really worried that the Emperor doesn't like him any more, so they drunkenly band together and produce a letter saying WE ARE LOYAL TO WALLENSTEIN BEFORE ANYONE ELSE, WHAT'CHU GONNA DO? And on the one hand, it's so sweet and heartfelt, and on the other hand it is basically the proof Wallenstein's enemies were waiting for and almost directly resulted in them deciding to kill him. The book summed itself up perfectly in the end with the verse from his tomb, "There is no light so bright as the sun - and yet, it fades".
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Jul 13, 2016 11:11
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it's the best epitaph nobody else was on his level. he wasn't old though, when he died, just sick as hell. check his life and death dates edit: i've always wondered if that epitaph was a veiled dig at Ferdinand: it's only the first half of Ecclesiasticus 17:31. The entire thing is "What is brighter than the sun? yet the light thereof faileth; and flesh and blood will imagine evil." That entire chapter is a good commentary on his death. "For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal." HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 11:23
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Post cold-war question: Why does Russia still have a decent military while China does not? Isn't the Chinese military about as powerful relatively to everyone around it as it was during the cold war, pretty large, and modernizing rapidly?
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Jul 13, 2016 11:28
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Thanqol posted:My favourite moment was when all of Wallenstein's men get really worried that the Emperor doesn't like him any more, so they drunkenly band together and produce a letter saying WE ARE LOYAL TO WALLENSTEIN BEFORE ANYONE ELSE, WHAT'CHU GONNA DO? And on the one hand, it's so sweet and heartfelt, and on the other hand it is basically the proof Wallenstein's enemies were waiting for and almost directly resulted in them deciding to kill him. edit: or at staying sober HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 11:38
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HEY GAL posted:as you can probably see from my stories, these guys are very good at a certain skill set and very, very bad at interacting with anyone who isn't also a soldier. Harrison talks in Ett Stort Lidande Har Kommit Över Oss (unless I am misremembering where I read this) that it wasn't always the case: there's some sources where some burgher or peasant talks about "his" quartered soldier who was like a son to him. For all the brutality, the 30YW was in many unlikely ways a war without hate.
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