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Critical Moments (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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Really? I notice you translated the dating to Christian chronology, to help make the point.

That was entirely for our (Christian) convenience. Would using Muslim dates have changed the meaning of my post?

Yes. All history is myth unless proven otherwise.

A ridiculous statement, Wiley. History is true unless proven otherwise. By us (since nobody else bothers). Let's do it for Schnorri [little Yiddish pun there] by listing the forgery red flags as itemised by Hatty, after about five minutes of critical evaluation. Orthodoxy clearly hasn't even spent that long despite having many hundreds of years to do so. I'll list them for everyone's convenience...
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Please go on.
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Mick Harper
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1. earlier sources that were as usual 'lost'
Even though the copy and the original must co-exist and it is the original that is the more valuable, it is always the original that gets lost and it’s the copy that always manages to survive.

2. (not to mention our old friend, 'oral tradition')
By definition, historians ought not to be relying on oral tradition especially as modern investigations show that oral traditions tend to have disappointingly recent origins.

3. the saga of the legendary Swedish dynasty of the Ynglings
If even they admit it...

4. The exact sources of his work are disputed
This can denote scholarly enterprise but usually means everyone’s scrabbling around to find something or other. Anything or other.

5. Norwegian synoptic histories
This is very weird. It seems to be that Snorri and Co used Bible stories as models for their own, but I’d better get Hatty to explore this one. It sounds complicated.

6. and oral traditions, notably many skaldic poems
Another weirdo for Hatty. As her mother used to call out when answering the door.

7. explicitly names the now lost work Hryggjarstykki as his source
You name ‘em, I’ll lose ‘em.

8. The extant manuscript is 17th century
When most of the Scandi-forgeries were done.

9. At that time it had lost the first page
As identified in Forgeries. The first page happens to have all the real tell-tale stuff on it, so tends to get ... er ... lost, though everything else survives.

10. The Copenhagen manuscript was among the many valuables destroyed in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728
A remarkable number of library fires took place around this time. Even more remarkable because the fires consumed some documents but others survived. And as it turned out all very fortuitous [see my upcoming epic The History of England, as told by the Cotton Library Fire].

11. Only one leaf of the manuscript survived and it is now kept in the National and University Library of Iceland
See above but in reverso (biblio-joke there). Just in case you thought it might not exist.

12. There was a pressing need to come up with a glorious past in the seventeenth century, the age of Swedish prominence
Ditto the other countries of northern Europe trying to break free from Rome. Once they really started looking, manuscripts detailing their glorious pasts just came tumbling out.

13. Old Norse was unintelligible to sixteenth-century Norwegians
Like Anglo-Saxon. Probably better that way. One wouldn't want too many non-specialists poking about.

14. The first translation was only completed in 1600
So not that important then.

15. and printed in 1633
So not that important then.

16. translated into Swedish and Latin by Johan Peringskiöld (by order of Charles XI)
So quite important then.

17. which is the first known use of the name
Fancy that!

18. came out in 1777-1783 (by order of Frederick VI as crown prince)
Very literary, these Scandi-monarchs. Took up cycling later.

19. er..

20. Let's play Twenty Questions!
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Hatty
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Snorri is Norway's chief chronicler though modern historians occasionally doubt the veracity of his history of the kings of Norway 'from the beginning' to c. 1220. A third of the book is devoted to Olaf II the patron saint of Norwary.

Snorri Sturluson's writings provide information and indications concerning persons and events influencing the peoples inhabiting North Europe during periods for which relevant information is scarce: thus, for example, he can be used to illuminate relations between England and Scandinavia during the 10th and 11th centuries. Snorri is considered a figure of enduring importance[by whom?][clarification needed] in this regard, Halvdan Koht describing his work as "surpassing anything else that the Middle Ages have left us of historical literature".

It's the era of Beowulf (17th century) though Scandinavian antiquarians came up with a named scribe rather than an anonymous one

Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241) is the first Icelandic author identified by name.

More to the point, the 17th century is the era of Sweden's seaborne empire. The Norwegians were not to be outshone in Snorri's account

He also provided an early account of the discovery of Vinland
.
Snorri Sturluson is claimed to be of national importance to Nordic countries

To an extent, the legacy of Snorri Sturluson also played a role in politics long after his death. His writings could be used in support of the claims of later Norwegian kings concerning the venerability and extent of their rule. Later, Heimskringla factored in establishing a national identity during the Norwegian romantic nationalism in mid-19th century


so there ought to be plenty of contemporary references to the greatest historian to emerge from Iceland. The life of Snorri by Óskar Guðmundsson, published last year, is hardly contemporaneous even if Snorri turns out to be modern /'early modern'

Snorri's Danish counterparts are Sven Aggesen and Saxo Grammaticus. Aggesen is claimed to be the author of the history of Danish kings from 300 to 1185 AD

Brevis Historia Regum Dacie, entitled Compendiosa regum Daniæ historia in one manuscript, thought to have been finished in 1186 or 1187 (the last event is described in 1185), a work covering Danish history beginning with the legendary King Skjold from around 300 to 1185
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Ishmael


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Yes. We have an inherited numbering system that helps us identify the "historical" "events" under discussion, but my "start point" is the present moment. I know this moment is real.

Everything else is iffy.
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Mick Harper
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Everything else is iffy.

You guys! Try to remember that AE says no fixed rules (even that one). You are as silly doubting everything as the academics are swallowing everything.
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Ishmael


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Mick Harper wrote:
Everything else is iffy.

You guys! Try to remember that AE says no fixed rules (even that one). You are as silly doubting everything as the academics are swallowing everything.


I know it seems ridiculous. But I carried out a Cartesian inquiry into the historical record and was horrified by what I discovered. I had no agenda but to find something, somewhere, in which I could be confident.

I have very reluctantly concluded that nothing prior to the age of Napoleon is reliable---and much of what occurred during the Napoleonic age has been thoroughly altered.
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Mick Harper
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Except Descartes obviously.
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Wile E. Coyote


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The dating obsession (years not girls) is I think a recent phenomenon. The great William Smith (20 May 1813 – 7 October 1893...NB might need to check these) didn't include many dates in his great 19th century works. I suspect that this was because these "founding fathers" knew that there were alternative chronologies and if they knew that they couldn't be sure about the information, they didn't include this information.

I reckon (I don't know) the explosion of dating (populist history) is something to do with populist encyclopedias, which replaced the more technical dictionaries of folks like Smith by adding in more dates, narrative and speculation.

Robert Graves is supposed to have heavily used Smith. This seems wise to me, but now Graves is criticised for this over-reliance on a single source. Here is Smith extract on "Jubilee."

Willim Smith wrote:
The reasons for the institution of the jubilee.—It was to be a remedy for those evils which accompany human society and human government; and had these laws been observed, they would have made the Jewish nation the most prosperous and perfect that ever existed. (1) The jubilee tended to abolish poverty. It prevented large and permanent accumulations of wealth. It gave unfortunate families an opportunity to begin over again with a fair start in life. It particularly favored the poor, without injustice to the rich. (2) It tended to abolish slavery, and in fact did abolish it; and it greatly mitigated it while it existed. “The effect of this law was at once to lift from the heart the terrible incubus of a life-long bondage—that sense of a hopeless doom which knows no relief till death.”—Cowles. (3) “As an agricultural people, they would have much leisure; they would observe the sabbatic spirit of the year by using its leisure for the instruction of their families in the law, and for acts of devotion; and in accordance with this there was a solemn reading of the law to the people assembled at the feast of tabernacles.”—Smith’s larger Dictionary. (4) “This law of entail, by which the right heir could never be excluded, was a provision of great wisdom for preserving families and tribes perfectly distinct, and their genealogies faithfully recorded, in order that all might have evidence to establish their right to the ancestral property. Hence the tribe and family of Christ were readily discovered at his birth.”


It's actually a lot more interesting than the wiki entry.
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Mick Harper
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It certainly is but whether you could build a nation on such principles is very doubtful. A hippy commune maybe. However, I draw your attention to No 4 The Law of Entail. This was a peculiarly British obsession at this time because the scions of the landed gentry were losing their shirts (and their estates) in the gambling salons of Georgian England, to the great detriment (as the ruling classes saw it) of the realm. They therefore passed a law that the core of theses estates were 'entailed' i.e. could not be hazarded at hazard.
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Wile E. Coyote


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If H is for Herald, then M is for Massacre.

It's the massacre of innocents, it's a critical moment


Massacre

"to kill (many beings) indiscriminately," commonly in reference to those who are not in a condition to defend themselves, 1580s, from Middle French massacrer "to slaughter" (16c.), from massacre (n.) "wholesale slaughter, carnage" (see massacre (n.)). Sometimes 17c.-18c. merely "to murder cruelly," without reference to number. Related: Massacred; massacring.

massacre (n.)

"unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of human beings," sometimes also applied to wholesale slaughter of animals, 1580s, from Middle French massacre "wholesale slaughter, carnage," from Old French macacre, macecle "slaughterhouse; butchery, slaughter," which is of unknown origin; perhaps related to Latin macellum "provisions store, butcher shop," which probably is related to mactāre "to kill, slaughter."


It's a messenger, and a creator. A new start.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Mick Harper wrote:
Except Descartes obviously.


On the contrary! I have much to suggest about the apparent Great Men of the past. Crazy ideas I do admit.
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Mick Harper
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You're such a contrarian!
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The story of the massacre goes something like this.

A woman is impregnated by a god. Word goes round that a great new king will be born. Those in power afraid of this, soon to be born, new king order the identification and the slaying of all new born babies. The woman flees to a new territory, the baby is born in an outhouse. From an early age the boy's abilities are clear....

It is the story of Augustus.

It is the story of the calendar you see on the bottom right of your screen.
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Ishmael


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What? Tell me more!
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