Nadar, Giacchino Rossini. 1856
Nadar. Theophile Gautier. 1854-1855Robert Mapplethorpe. Self-Portrait. 1976.
Robert Mapplethorpe. Self-Portrait. 1988.
Happy belated Bloomsday!
Accidental post, nothing to see here, move on
As every schoolchild knows, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark used to be part of the “Kalmar Union”. The Kalmar Union, which began in 1397, was a personal union. This meant that the three countries would share the same king (same head of state), but would each have their own government. Thus, the same monarch would have different advisers and different ministers in each country in which he was king, and these advisers and ministers were supposed to govern their countries as if they were independent from each other.
The head of the Kalmar Union was the royal dynasty of Denmark, who therefore also served as Kings of Norway and Kings of Sweden. Since the Kalmar kings were usually in Copenhagen, regents were often used to govern Norway and Sweden. The greatest of the Swedish regents is generally agreed to be Sten Sture the Elder, who served two separate terms between 1470 and 1503. Sture the Elder ruled Sweden so well and attained such popularity with Swedes that he enjoyed far greater power than any regent before him; some historians consider Sweden de facto independent during his time in office. He was able to finance a war against Russia without Kalmar support; indeed, the King of Denmark actually sought to ally with Russia against the power of Sture the Elder.
Sten Sture the Elder died in 1503, but his name and deeds lived on. Indeed, today in the center of Stockholm’s historical district, there is a cafe named in honor of Sten Sture the Elder. If you go inside, you can see a picture of him:
In 1514, an ambitious new King came to the Kalmar throne: Christian II of Denmark. Christian II was intent on turning the Kalmar Union from a personal union (where countries only have the same king in common) to an actual union (where countries also have the same government in common). Because Christian II was Danish, this meant turning Norway and Sweden into provinces of Denmark, which would be exploited for the greater glory of Copenhagen.
This required cracking down on Swedish autonomy, which had blossomed under Sten Sture the Elder. Because the Swedes had grown accustomed to being their own masters, they reacted poorly to such centralizing policies. In fact, a rebellion in Sweden broke out under the command of the old regent’s son: Sten Sture the Younger. Noble and peasant alike joined the anti-Danish revolt.
Christian II invaded Sweden to crush the revolt. At the Battle of Bogesund in January 1520, the Danes were victorious and Sture the Younger was mortally wounded. Christian II then moved on Stockholm, which was filled with Swedish nobles who had supported the rebellion.
Christian II made them a promise: submit to Denmark, and they will receive civil immunity for their support of Sture the Younger. The nobles accepted this, and in celebration of the king’s clemency, a feast of several days length was held. The nobles all became quite comfortable with the situation and let their guard down. Then, at the end of the feast, a new guest showed up: Gustavus Trolle, Archbishop of Stockholm.
Remember, Christian II had given the nobles civil immunity: immunity from prosecution in the king’s courts. But like most medieval countries, Sweden also had separate church courts. Christian II didn’t give any immunity from church courts; in fact, he couldn’t. Archbishop Trolle, head of the church courts in Sweden, announced that all of the nobles who had supported Sten Sture the Younger were heretics and would be tried in a church court immediately. Him and Christian had planned this trap beforehand. Trolle was followed into the dining room by a small armed force who seized the nobles. A perfunctory show trial was held, and all of the nobles were sentenced to death for heresy.
According to legend, not a single Swede could be found to carry out the execution of the Sture the Younger supporters. So Archbishop Trolle employed a German named Jorgen Homuth. In total, about 82 people were beheaded or hanged in a small square in central Stockholm. This is the famous “Stockholm Bloodbath”. The executions happened in this small square in central Stockholm:
(the well in this picture is from the 1600’s and was not there at the time of the bloodbath)
As for Sten Sture the Younger, his corpse was dug up and burned at the stake for heresy as well. Christian II had established complete Danish dominance over Sweden.
But it was short-lived. Instead of breaking the spirit of the Swedes, the bloodbath sparked a second rebellion led by the nobleman Gustavus Vasa. This second revolt was successful: the Kalmar Union was dissolved, and Gustavus Vasa became king of a completely independent Sweden.
above: Gustavus Vasa
There was one problem: Trolle was still Archbishop of Stockholm, the highest church office in all Sweden, and no Swede could tolerate the occupation of that office by so infamous and hated a man. King Gustavus Vasa tried to depose Trolle, but Pope Leo X refused to allow this. Only the Pope had the power to depose bishops.
Conveniently for Sweden, it was the early 1520’s, and Lutheranism had just been invented in Germany. So King Gustavus Vasa broke from the Catholic Church, declared Sweden to be a Lutheran country, and then dismissed Trolle from his church position. The end result of the Stockholm Bloodbath was the fall of Catholicism in Scandinavia.
To this day, Archbishop Trolle is considered one of the greatest villains in all of Swedish history. His name is a by-word for traitor, much like Quisling in nearby Norway.
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The River-Merchant’s wife: A letter
While my hair was still cut straight
across my forehead
I played at the front gate, pulling
flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing
horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with
blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of
Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or
suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never
looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with
yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river
of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise
overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went
out,
By the gate now, the moss is grown,
the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in
wind.
The paired butterflies are already
yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the
narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-sa.
-Li Po
Sestina:Altaforte
Loquitur: En Bertrans de Born.
Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a
stirrer-up of strife.
Eccovi!
Judge ye!
Have I dug him up again?
The scene in at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur.
“The Leopard,” the device of Richard (Cúur de Lion).
I
Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.
II
In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.
III
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breast opposing!
Better one hour’s stour than a year’s peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there’s no wine like the blood’s crimson!
IV
And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears through the dark clash
And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His lone might ‘gainst all darkness opposing.
V
The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth’s won and the swords clash
For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.
VI
Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There’s no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle’s rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges ‘gainst “The Leopard’s” rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry “Peace!”
VII
And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought “Peace!”
In a station of the Metro
The Apparition of faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough
Pietro Lorenzetti. St. Catherine 1330-1340. Tempera on panel transferred to canvas;101.5×49.5 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington
Royozen. Arhat. mid 14th century. Ink and color on silk; 113×89.5 cm. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington.
Jan Van Eyck. St. Jerome in his Study. 1435. Oil on linen paper on panel; 20.6×13.3 cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.
The Apostolic Kingdom of Hungary was something of a superpower in Eastern Europe from its foundation in the 900’s to as late as 1490. But like its neighbor, Poland-Lithuania, Hungary was decentralized and unable to field a large professional army — unlike its new neighbor to the south, the Ottoman Empire.
In 1514, the Hungarian government, at the urging of the Pope, decided to finance a crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Instead of raising its own force, the Hungarian government ordered a petty nobleman named Gyorgy Dozsa to go and raise an army of peasants, with the promise that they would pay him later with the money needed to clothe, feed, and supply the army. Dozsa was able to raise a substantial force of social dregs in Transylvania and provide it with rudimentary military training. But the funding never came. According to legend, the Hungarian nobility — who truly controlled the country — instead demanded that the peasants go back to toiling the fields.
At this point, Dozsa decided that instead of a crusade, he was going to lead a peasant rebellion. Pretty much everybody in Transylvania who had some disagreement with the ruling nobility joined the movement — including nascent religious reformers. Because the Kingdom of Hungary didn’t actually have an army, Dosza had free reign over anywhere he could march to. His followers captured over a half-dozen forts and cities in Transylvania, frequently impaling local nobles and bishops.
Finally, the Kingdom of Hungary was able to raise a force of mostly foreign mercenaries under the command of a young Janos Zapolya (not yet Janos I Zapolya), and Dozsa was defeated and captured at the Battle of Temesvar.
Dozsa was executed in a most curious manner. Six of his followers were intentionally starved for a number of days. Then, Dozsa was placed on a throne made of heated iron and made to wear a similarly heated iron crown. This had the result of slowly cooking him. Then, his starving followers were released into the room. According to legend, the famished peasants were unable to resist the smell of cooking flesh, and Gyorgy Dozsa was eaten alive by his own supporters.
Here are some woodcuts of his execution:
Fourteen years after Dozsa got eaten, the last independent King of Hungary died while retreating from a massive military defeat at the hands of Suleyman the Magnificent. Most of Hungary became an Ottoman province. Transylvania, however, was turned into an autonomous Ottoman satellite, whose purpose was to serve as a buffer between the Turkish and Austrian empires. The new Principality of Transylvania was ruled by elected princes, most of whom came from the major Transylvanian noble families that Dozsa had rebelled against. Indeed, many Transylvanian nobles converted to Calvinism, and Transylvania became one of the first countries in Europe with complete freedom of worship.
In the 20th century, Transylvania was transferred to the new country of Romania. This meant that after WW2, when new Communist regimes began searching history for peasant heroes to legitimize their rule, Dozsa became revered by not one, but two communist parties.
In Red Hungary, he was upheld as a proto-Marxist-Leninist-Kadarist and began appearing on communist currency and inspirational artwork:
In Red Romania, he was re-christened Gheorghe Doja. The city where he was defeated — Temesvar in Hungarian, Timisoara in Romanian — became home to a monument to him:
Indeed, today one of the major streets in Timisoara is named for Doja. A google image search for “Gheorghe Doja Strada” reveals that it seems to be home to a sizable population of stray dogs.
Throw them some warm meat if you’re ever there.
Albrecht Durer, The Castle at Arco, 1494 or 1505
One of his Italian landscapes, prehaps the first pure landscapes in postclassical western art.
Albrecht Durer, Madonna and Child. 1496/1499
I’ve always wondered if these painting have ever been exibited together.
In the 1400’s, there was a series of peasant rebellions in Germany, mostly along the Rhineland. Most of them were purely local events: quickly defeated and of little historical significance.
The interesting thing about them is that many of them used a common symbol: the bundschuh, which is German for “bound shoe”. Quite literally, the peasants would march around carrying flags with tied shoes on them. While the Bundschuh rebellions of the 1400’s failed to accomplish anything, their symbolism lived on for at least a hundred years.
In the early 1500’s, there emerged a new peasant leader named Joss Fritz. He led three separate rebellions, each of which were quite large and threatening. One of the reasons he was able to gain such a large following was because he appropriated the bundschuh symbolism of the previous generation; the symbol and memory of the old rebellion had grown far in excess of anything the original bundschuh rebels had actually done.
A generation later, the Peasant’s War rocked Germany; but by this time, much of it was fueled by anti-clericalism, such as the “Prague Manifesto” of radical anabaptist preacher Thomas Muentzer. Because of this religious subtext, the Peasants War was much less of a class conflict than its predecessors. Indeed, one of the most colorful leaders of the Peasants War was an eccentric knight named Gotz von Berlichingen, who is famous for having a mechanical arm.
Here is a modern drawing of what his arm may have looked like:
Here is a prosthetic metal arm from around the time of Gotz von Berlichingen, though it is not his:
The Peasants were hoping to gain the support of Martin Luther, whose opposition to the Roman Church was a major inspiration. Instead, Luther wrote a book titled Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, which included such lines as:
“The peasants have taken upon themselves the burden of three terrible sins against God and man; by this they have merited death in body and soul…thus they become the worst blasphemers of God and slanderers of his holy name
***
Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel.
***
I think there is not a devil left in hell; they have all gone into the peasants.”
With Luther cheering them on, the authorities were able to engage the peasants at the Battle of Frankenhausen, at which the peasants were slaughtered.
And thus the German peasant rebellion faded into history. Until East Germany came along.
Like most Eastern European communist regimes, the DDR rehabilitated old peasant rebels and made them into prophets of Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism. Statues of Joss Fritz went up all over East Germany, even though he wasn’t even from there.
And as for Thomas Muentzer, he of the burning religious faith?
He ended up on the currency of an avowedly atheist regime:
Edvard Munch, Sister Inger on the Beach, 1889, Bergen Art Museum
Edvard Munch, Vampire, 1893-4, Munch Museum Oslo
Edvard Munch, Mermaid, 1896, Philadelphia Museum of Art
