pilfered_words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pilfered_words) wrote2019-02-10 08:45 pm
pilfered_words) wrote2019-02-10 08:45 pm
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One of my weirder hobbies is exploring, in detail, the family trees of medieval monarchs and nobles. With a particular focus on England, and, because this is me, on characters from Shakespeare’s history plays.
They all marry their cousins. It’s kind of absurd. Any two important families are connected to each other five different ways. You can see very clearly on the family trees which families had a close alliance in 1326, which suddenly lost status in 1399, which died out after the Wars of the Roses. If you have a little outside knowledge, maybe as much as Wikipedia gives you, you can see where the family connections drive events: where a son-in-law had to take his father-in-law’s side in a dispute, or where the next-person-in-line for a title and a piece of land pushed his claim and started a war.
They were constantly at war with each other, and because of the web their families were woven into, this meant they were constantly at war with their cousins. They died young, and their family lines died out, so that their inheritance went to their cousins - often the same cousins they warred with. If they lived long enough, they fathered many children, and the children’s children tore each other apart for a share of the land they believed belonged to them by right.
And - they were patrons to great artists. They painted and wrote poetry themselves, they commissioned portraits of themselves and poems in their honor, built cathedrals and founded universities. And, eventually, the world they built changed them.
They all marry their cousins. It’s kind of absurd. Any two important families are connected to each other five different ways. You can see very clearly on the family trees which families had a close alliance in 1326, which suddenly lost status in 1399, which died out after the Wars of the Roses. If you have a little outside knowledge, maybe as much as Wikipedia gives you, you can see where the family connections drive events: where a son-in-law had to take his father-in-law’s side in a dispute, or where the next-person-in-line for a title and a piece of land pushed his claim and started a war.
They were constantly at war with each other, and because of the web their families were woven into, this meant they were constantly at war with their cousins. They died young, and their family lines died out, so that their inheritance went to their cousins - often the same cousins they warred with. If they lived long enough, they fathered many children, and the children’s children tore each other apart for a share of the land they believed belonged to them by right.
And - they were patrons to great artists. They painted and wrote poetry themselves, they commissioned portraits of themselves and poems in their honor, built cathedrals and founded universities. And, eventually, the world they built changed them.