Re: Mercs for Hire! (fwd)

[clevin@ripco.com (Craig Levin)]

Poster: clevin@ripco.com (Craig Levin)

> Poster: Peter Adams <redduke@earthlink.net>
> 
> GO PEDRO!!!!!!
> 
> >From now on, Ill just be shooting off my mouth and let Pedro do all the
> real documentation.

Good sir, you are too kind to a poor pursuivant. 

> 	Anyway, I must also say that if you had suggested to the Burgundians
> that they were simply a chip between two principles, you mopst certainly
> would find yourself the subject of some obscure Auto de Fe.  (albeit not
> a formal church ceremony)

Especially Charles the Bold. Not a nice man. Just about the only
person who had the chutzpah to charge the Swiss-and have half a
chance of coming out of it. He didn't though. There's just
something about polearms that does wonders to men on horseback
with inflated ideas about their destinies.

> 	The attitude that there can only be two sides, and one principle to
> each side is a medievally untenable idea, the crusades (sic em Pedro) in
> particular demonstrating the fights over hierarchy among theorietically
> allied kingdoms.

If you think that the Crusades showed how bad factiuonalism could
get, think of the states in the Iberian Peninsula-between the
Muslim _taifas_ changing rulers by asassination every few years,
and the Christian kings running into hunting accidents, it's a
wonder that the Iberian Peninsula only has two countries in it
today...

> 	In fact, as far as I could ever tell, The dukes of burgundy were pretty
> much involved in trying to figure out how they could become the KINGS of
> burgundy.  The French or English got Burgundian support based on how
> that agenda would be advanced. (Im not looking forward to the post where
> Pedro has to go "uh, sorry Badouin, but you are waaaaay wrong")

:) Actually, it seems like becoming king of Burgundy was sort of
on Duke Philip's mission statement, but it ranked below getting
back at the king for having backed the duke of Orleans in killing
his father. 

Mind you, there _was_ an independent kingdom between what would
become France and what would become the Holy Roman Empire back in
the days of the Carolingians. It _did_ include the Low Countries
and Burgundy, but it also included some other places, like Alsace
and Lorraine (in fact, Lorraine was its seat-Lotharingia was its
original name, and the French wore its name down to Lorraine, and
the Germans down to Lotringen). The other countries, once they
found that Lothar and his ilk were a pretty puny bunch, tried to
carve his lands down the middle. The result has had implications
on today's history-there are still people alive today who can
remember when Alsace and Lorraine were German (1870-1918), then
French (1918-1939), then German (1939-1945), then French (1945-).
My guess is that while Philip had the skill to manage such a
skinny kingdom, his son didn't, and he'd have gotten himself and
his kingdom carved into joints.

In Service,

Dom Pedro de Alcazar
Barony of Storvik, Atlantia
Drakkar Pursuivant
Argent, a tower purpure between 3 bunches of grapes proper

-- 
http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~clevin/index.html 
clevin@ripco.com
Craig Levin
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