1. How unscathed do the mentioned Reformation religions translate to their modern counter parts?
The modern Calvinist (Presbyterians as we refer to them in America) and Lutheran religions are quite distinct from their sixteenth century forbears. For example the modern Lutheran church has officially rejected Luther’s views on Jews. I do not see modern Presbyterians attempting to recreate Calvinist Geneva on these shores. Neither of these groups maintain their forbearers emphasis of Hell and damnation.
This is quite common with religions in general. No religion is the same as the religion that existed centuries beforehand with the same name. A Catholic church run by Pope Benedict XVI, whether you like him or not, is a very different Catholic church from that of Leo X. We are dealing with different people who read texts differently, who interpret traditions differently and make different decisions. There is the lie perpetuated by most religions that they are an unbroken chain of tradition. In order to maintain this lie religious establishments will distort history and pretend that one can draw a straight line of equivalency between themselves and their forbearers.
2. I was reading the section and I noticed how divided up the nations we have today used to be. I knew Germany has been many separate states for most of its existence, but I had no idea the Netherlands was so separate. Also, it says that the Dutch had essentially the first modern Republic, so my question is, how similar was the 16th-17th century Dutch Republic to our own Republic, was it truly an early modern predecessor to American free-market capitalism?
3. What is your opinion on Davies' claim that the Netherlands "had every reason to regard itself as the first modern state"? I've never heard this before and would be interested in your thoughts on such a bold statement.
One of the major shifts in modern historiography is that our narrative of the Enlightenment and pre Enlightenment has moved away from just France. Just as our narrative of the Renaissance has moved away from the traditional Italian centered narrative so to has the narrative of the Enlightenment moved away from being France centered and other Enlightenments and pre Enlightenments have come into focus. The major beneficiary of this has been the seventeenth century Dutch republic. While the Dutch did not have religious tolerance in the modern sense of the term they were certainly more tolerant than anyone else in Europe and they were host to a fairly colorful cast of characters; the most famous of them being Benedict Spinoza. In addition the Dutch were leaders in the development of a merchant class. The Dutch republic, a small insignificant country managed to build a world class trading empire and become a major European power. Davies is certainly on the side of this pro Dutch shift, though he may overstep himself.
4. How was the Dutch education system? If I remember correctly from 111, the early university structure included 3 Lower and 4 Upper Disciplines. Was the same structure applied in the seventeenth century in Dutch Republic in particular, and Europe in general?
Good question. One that I am not qualified to answer. I do know that European universities one the major holdouts of conservative Aristotelians. This is contrary to modern times where we associate universities with being very liberal.
5. Can you go into more detail of the rioting and religious desecrationthat occurred under the regency of Margaret of Parma?
Margaret of Parma was the regent in charge of the Netherlands and she failed to maintain control at the beginning of revolt. Philip II put in a string of people to put down the Calvinist revolt and all of them failed. As with the pervious question I honesty do not have the background in Dutch history to go into much detail.
6. The witch craze is noted to be attributed "to the pathological effects of religious conflict." I can't say I really understand this. If all these changes and knowledge were being brought around by the Renaissance, how did this kind of stuff ever fly?
This is one of the great ironies of the early modern period. The Middle Ages, for all of its supposed “superstition,” did not have witches. All of a sudden, in the fifteenth century, when Europeans are becoming more “rational we have find this obsessions, possessing both the upper and lower classes, with the idea that there are people selling their souls to Satan and having orgies at secret Sabbaths. See Stuart Clark’s Thinking with Demons on this issue. He puts this issue into the context of early modern thought and shows why witches were a logical extension of certain foundational assumptions of early modern thought.
I showed the Return of Martin Guerre after class and offered the following questions to consider in relation to the class:
1. What is the role of family in Martin Guerre’s village? Are marriages made on the basis of love?
2. Are the villagers prudish about sex? Would children growing up in this society be more innocent or less innocent about sex than children growing up in our society?
3. The story in the film takes place in the mid sixteenth century. How relevant is this fact? Could this story have just as easily happened during the Middle Ages?
4. To what extent is the peasant society of Martin Guerre’s village distinct from the “high society” of the investigators from the parliament of Toulouse? To what extent does the film play to the notion of distinct spheres of high and low society?
5. Can we refer to the residents of the village as being oppressed and if so by whom?
6. Where does the priest fit in with this peasant society?
7. What is the role of women in this society? Are women in a subordinate position?
8. What is the role of religion in this society? How does the priest compare with the local wise woman?
9. In a world without fingerprints, DNA, dental records or even photographs how does one establish identity?
10. Using dramatic license, the film has Bernadette being aware of the truth about the man who claimed to be her husband; do you think that she did in real life?
Showing posts with label Return of Martin Guerre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Return of Martin Guerre. Show all posts
Monday, April 6, 2009
Saturday, September 13, 2008
The Return of Martin Guerre and the Feminist Fantasies of Natalie Davis
(Since, in my last post, I talked about Natalie Zemon Davis and her book, the Return of Martin Guerre, I thought to share with you a review I wrote a few years ago, while I was still an undergraduate at Yeshiva University, on the book. We were assigned the book in class and, as an assignment, had to write a review of it. To the professor's surprise most of the papers were very hostile; a good example of how different the Yeshiva University student body is from a normal college campus. My review was one of the more hostile ones. Back then I was much more the fighting conservative than I am today. If I were to rewrite this I would probably tone it down a bit. It definitely is a great book, despite its flaws, and I have every intention of using it when I have students of my own.)
The integrity of the field of history rests upon the assumption that the writing of history is a fundamentally different sort of undertaking than the writing of historical fiction. While even the most rigorous historian inevitably colors the facts with his own speculations, (Ranke is a prime example of this) history is supposed to about the interpretation of past events through the lens of documentary evidence. The writing of historical fiction on the other hand[1] is centered upon the attempts of an author to speculate upon the hidden stories and motivations that lie outside the realm of documentary evidence. While the art of historical fiction may be of value to the historian, it is not history. To blur this line is a disservice to the field in that it renders the study of history as mere partisan propaganda. This is so particularly when such writings are done in support of an ideology. If one is going to be a historian then one has to convince the reader that there has been a genuine attempt to check one’s ideology at the door.
An example of this issue can be seen in the Return of Martin Guerre by the noted feminist historian, Natalie Zemon Davis. To be sure, it should be noted, that whatever the book’s flaws, it is a fascinating and well-crafted bit of writing. The stated facts of the case which Davis discusses are these: In mid 16th century France, Martin Guerre, a peasant of Basque descent, abandoned his wife, Bertrande, and child, Sanxi, over a fight he had with his father over some grain. Eight years later a man named Arnaud du Tilh came around, claiming to be Martin Guerre, and was initially accepted as such by Bertrande, the rest of the family, along with everyone else in the village. Doubts began to rise however and Martin Guerre’s uncle, Pierre Guerre, along with Bertrande, come to accuse Arnaud of being a fake. The case was resolved when the true Martin Guerre, after twelve years, came home, minus a leg that had been shot off by a cannonball in Flanders. Arnaud was hanged, Martin Guerre resumed his proper place and Bertrande was absolved of having committed adultery, as the impression of the court was that she had been tricked into believing that Arnaud was her husband and was not a party to his fraud. These are the facts as the Parlement of Toulouse seemed to have understood them and according to the generally accepted rules of historical explanation, baring any evidence to the contrary, this version of events should stand; any attempt paint a different picture should carry the burden of proof upon it.
It would seem that Bertrande was a simple housewife, whose main concern in life was trying to keep body and soul together, who, tragically, was abandoned by her husband and tricked into living with an impostor for four years. This interpretation of events evidentially does not suit Davis, not because she has contradictory evidence, but because such a picture does not take into account the feminist conscience that Bertrande “must” have had. As such Davis offers an alternative reading of the events, one that takes into account the fact that Bertrande possessed “a concern for her reputation as a woman, a stubborn independence, and a shrewd realism about how she could maneuver within the constraints placed upon her sex.”[2]
This rewriting of events begins even before the departure of Martin. Bertrande and Martin did not have a child for the first eight years, or so, of their marriage and it was assumed that the couple was under some curse, which prevented Martin from impregnating his wife. This “curse” was lifted, if we are to take the written accounts at their word, when, at the advice of a “wise woman.” Martin and Bertrande “had four masses said by the priest and were given sacred hosts and special cakes to eat.”[3] This resulted in the birth of their son, Sanxi. To a historian still schooled in "outdated," "patriarchal," modes of study, it is not certain why Martin and Bertrande, unable to produce a child, still stayed together. This could have been for any number of plausible reasons; maybe the families would not have allowed it, Bertrande may have actually been in love with Martin or she might have been scared to death of what he would do to her if she left. For Davis the explanation for this is obvious; Bertrande, while not wanting to be married yet to Martin, did not wish to end up back under her father’s control. She thus, by allowing it to be claimed that Martin was cursed, manipulated the situation so she could be both outside of her father’s control and exempt from the normal duties of marriage. “Then when Bertrande was ready for it, the old woman ‘appeared suddenly as if from heaven’ and helped to lift the spell.”[4] (I.e. this was a scam worked out between Bertrande and the old woman.) Does Davis offer us a source that has someone, from that time, making the claim that Bertrande manipulated the situation? No. Does Davis even bother to bring down a case, from that time period, in which a woman played such a game and thus allow us to draw some sort of comparison? No.
Davis’ insinuations do not stop there. After Martin’s disappearance, Davis wonders if Bertrande was comforted in her solitude by that “wise woman who had counseled her during her bewitchment.”[5] This of course, makes perfect sense as it is well known that women, in 16th century France, were secretly organized under the banner of the female conscience and merely went “along with the system, passing it on through the deep tie and hidden complicity of mother and daughter.”[6] It would seem that the existence of such a secret system seems so obvious to Davis that she does not bother to offer us a single source as to the veracity of such a claim.
Davis’ most egregious claim is that, far from being duped by Arnaud, Bertrande was well aware, from the very beginning, that Arnaud was a fake and simply went along with the charade because she wanted a husband. Davis takes it as a given that “the obstinate and honorable Bertrande [was not] a woman so easily fooled, not even by a charmer like Pansette. By the time she had received him in her bed, she must have realized the difference.”[7] Now we know that Arnaud was slick enough to fool Martin’s own sisters, who knew Martin for longer than Bertrande did. The reason why it is unlikely that Arnaud fooled Bertrande, according to Davis, is that “as any wife of Artigat would have agreed, there is no mistaking ‘the touch of the man on the woman.’”[8] The most obvious problem with such claim is that it is not backed, as far as I can tell, by any sort of empirical data; I would love to see the study that a test group of blindfolded women could recognize a man based on how they were touched. Lacking that I can see no reason what so ever why this bit of folk wisdom would be relevant. (Imagine a conservative saying something like this and getting their book published by the Harvard University Press and being made the director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Study at Princeton University.) What is even more amusing is that Davis’ source for this, which she only indicates in her end notes, is a 17th-century historical work[9] by Etienne Pasquier (1529-1615), titled Les Recherches de la France. I must say that there seems to me to be something just a bit disingenuous when someone, who has a consistent track record of treating folk wisdom about women, written by men, with absolute scorn, turns around and builds a thesis around such folk wisdom merely when it suits their purpose.
Davis crosses a certain line here where her writing ceases to be a matter of putting objective facts, tied together with the writer’s speculations, on the table and instead becomes a forum for the writer to give her speculations, tied together with some historical facts. The challenge for Davis is to explain why her telling of the Martin Guerre case is intrinsically more deserving of the title History than a top of the line work of historical fiction such as the Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. Killer Angels chronicles the events, in the form of a novel, of the battle of Gettysburg. This is a book that won the Pulitzer Prize, in 1974, and is considered a classic of American literature. No one, as far as I can tell, has ever offered a sustained attack on Shaara’s presentation of the battle of Gettysburg. Nevertheless, no one would ever consider Killer Angels to be a history of the battle. The reason for this is that Michael Shaara, in the end, had the people involved in the battle say and do things that cannot be justified strictly in terms of documentary evidence. In truth, though, one could say that Shaara was simply trying to resurrect the style of historiography used in antiquity by Thucydides and Josephus.
In many respects Killer Angels is superior to Martin Guerre; it is demonstrably evident that Killer Angels is on far firmer grounds, factually, than Martin Guerre. By the standard of historical events, Gettysburg was a very well documented battle. We can track, down to the hour, what the major figures in this battle, such as Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Hancock, Meade and Chamberlain, were doing. All of these people left numerous volumes in memoirs and correspondence discussing their actions and their motives, which Shaara put to good use; we can be fairly certain that whatever was really said at the battle of Gettysburg was not that far off from what Shaara had his characters say. This is in contrast to the events described in Martin Guerre. Neither Martin Guerre nor Beatrice nor Arnund actually left any written records. All that we have is a slim book written by the judge in that case, Jean de Coras, and also Gullaume Le Sueur’s Historia. We have little in the way of solid ground to portray their mindsets. As such anyone who would wish to tell their story is forced to rely on his or her own imagination.
To be fair to Davis, one could argue that unlike Killer Angels, Martin Guerre gives its sources and, unlike Shaara, Davis points out where historical evidence ends and her suppositions begin. My response would be that even if Shaara would have bothered to put out an annotated edition of his work, documenting his sources, pointing out to the reader where he had allowed his imagination to fill in the blanks and offering a defense of these intuitions, Killer Angels would still be considered historical fiction, albeit one that contained a useful “study guide” to the real events.
In the end, Martin Guerre, while it may not fit in as history, cannot merely be pushed aside as historical fiction. Davis may take too many liberties for it to be considered history yet Martin Guerre is not structured like a novel, it is too self-conscious; most of the work contains Davis’ surmises upon the events. Rather than either of these two categories, Martin Guerre should be viewed as a running commentary to a work of either history or historical fiction that unfortunately does not, as of yet, exist. In this sense, Davis has performed an admirable service for the student of history in that she has allowed the reader to get a glimpse into the thought processes of a genuinely talented historian and has offered an invaluable look at the thought processes, struggles and issues that go into writing genuine history.
[1] The type at least that honestly engages the issues instead of merely using real events as a background for the author’s fantasies.
[2] Davis pg. 28
[3] Davis pg. 21
[4] Davis pg. 28-29
[5] ibid pg. 34
[6] ibid pg. 31
[7] ibid pg. 44
[8] ibid
[9] Pasquier actually put out numerous editions of this work throughout his lifetime. The first edition was put out in 1560, this was followed by editions in 1596, 1607 and 1611, in which the author added large amounts of information to. The one Davis makes use of was published in 1621. (See http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/nzdavis.htm)
The integrity of the field of history rests upon the assumption that the writing of history is a fundamentally different sort of undertaking than the writing of historical fiction. While even the most rigorous historian inevitably colors the facts with his own speculations, (Ranke is a prime example of this) history is supposed to about the interpretation of past events through the lens of documentary evidence. The writing of historical fiction on the other hand[1] is centered upon the attempts of an author to speculate upon the hidden stories and motivations that lie outside the realm of documentary evidence. While the art of historical fiction may be of value to the historian, it is not history. To blur this line is a disservice to the field in that it renders the study of history as mere partisan propaganda. This is so particularly when such writings are done in support of an ideology. If one is going to be a historian then one has to convince the reader that there has been a genuine attempt to check one’s ideology at the door.
An example of this issue can be seen in the Return of Martin Guerre by the noted feminist historian, Natalie Zemon Davis. To be sure, it should be noted, that whatever the book’s flaws, it is a fascinating and well-crafted bit of writing. The stated facts of the case which Davis discusses are these: In mid 16th century France, Martin Guerre, a peasant of Basque descent, abandoned his wife, Bertrande, and child, Sanxi, over a fight he had with his father over some grain. Eight years later a man named Arnaud du Tilh came around, claiming to be Martin Guerre, and was initially accepted as such by Bertrande, the rest of the family, along with everyone else in the village. Doubts began to rise however and Martin Guerre’s uncle, Pierre Guerre, along with Bertrande, come to accuse Arnaud of being a fake. The case was resolved when the true Martin Guerre, after twelve years, came home, minus a leg that had been shot off by a cannonball in Flanders. Arnaud was hanged, Martin Guerre resumed his proper place and Bertrande was absolved of having committed adultery, as the impression of the court was that she had been tricked into believing that Arnaud was her husband and was not a party to his fraud. These are the facts as the Parlement of Toulouse seemed to have understood them and according to the generally accepted rules of historical explanation, baring any evidence to the contrary, this version of events should stand; any attempt paint a different picture should carry the burden of proof upon it.
It would seem that Bertrande was a simple housewife, whose main concern in life was trying to keep body and soul together, who, tragically, was abandoned by her husband and tricked into living with an impostor for four years. This interpretation of events evidentially does not suit Davis, not because she has contradictory evidence, but because such a picture does not take into account the feminist conscience that Bertrande “must” have had. As such Davis offers an alternative reading of the events, one that takes into account the fact that Bertrande possessed “a concern for her reputation as a woman, a stubborn independence, and a shrewd realism about how she could maneuver within the constraints placed upon her sex.”[2]
This rewriting of events begins even before the departure of Martin. Bertrande and Martin did not have a child for the first eight years, or so, of their marriage and it was assumed that the couple was under some curse, which prevented Martin from impregnating his wife. This “curse” was lifted, if we are to take the written accounts at their word, when, at the advice of a “wise woman.” Martin and Bertrande “had four masses said by the priest and were given sacred hosts and special cakes to eat.”[3] This resulted in the birth of their son, Sanxi. To a historian still schooled in "outdated," "patriarchal," modes of study, it is not certain why Martin and Bertrande, unable to produce a child, still stayed together. This could have been for any number of plausible reasons; maybe the families would not have allowed it, Bertrande may have actually been in love with Martin or she might have been scared to death of what he would do to her if she left. For Davis the explanation for this is obvious; Bertrande, while not wanting to be married yet to Martin, did not wish to end up back under her father’s control. She thus, by allowing it to be claimed that Martin was cursed, manipulated the situation so she could be both outside of her father’s control and exempt from the normal duties of marriage. “Then when Bertrande was ready for it, the old woman ‘appeared suddenly as if from heaven’ and helped to lift the spell.”[4] (I.e. this was a scam worked out between Bertrande and the old woman.) Does Davis offer us a source that has someone, from that time, making the claim that Bertrande manipulated the situation? No. Does Davis even bother to bring down a case, from that time period, in which a woman played such a game and thus allow us to draw some sort of comparison? No.
Davis’ insinuations do not stop there. After Martin’s disappearance, Davis wonders if Bertrande was comforted in her solitude by that “wise woman who had counseled her during her bewitchment.”[5] This of course, makes perfect sense as it is well known that women, in 16th century France, were secretly organized under the banner of the female conscience and merely went “along with the system, passing it on through the deep tie and hidden complicity of mother and daughter.”[6] It would seem that the existence of such a secret system seems so obvious to Davis that she does not bother to offer us a single source as to the veracity of such a claim.
Davis’ most egregious claim is that, far from being duped by Arnaud, Bertrande was well aware, from the very beginning, that Arnaud was a fake and simply went along with the charade because she wanted a husband. Davis takes it as a given that “the obstinate and honorable Bertrande [was not] a woman so easily fooled, not even by a charmer like Pansette. By the time she had received him in her bed, she must have realized the difference.”[7] Now we know that Arnaud was slick enough to fool Martin’s own sisters, who knew Martin for longer than Bertrande did. The reason why it is unlikely that Arnaud fooled Bertrande, according to Davis, is that “as any wife of Artigat would have agreed, there is no mistaking ‘the touch of the man on the woman.’”[8] The most obvious problem with such claim is that it is not backed, as far as I can tell, by any sort of empirical data; I would love to see the study that a test group of blindfolded women could recognize a man based on how they were touched. Lacking that I can see no reason what so ever why this bit of folk wisdom would be relevant. (Imagine a conservative saying something like this and getting their book published by the Harvard University Press and being made the director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Study at Princeton University.) What is even more amusing is that Davis’ source for this, which she only indicates in her end notes, is a 17th-century historical work[9] by Etienne Pasquier (1529-1615), titled Les Recherches de la France. I must say that there seems to me to be something just a bit disingenuous when someone, who has a consistent track record of treating folk wisdom about women, written by men, with absolute scorn, turns around and builds a thesis around such folk wisdom merely when it suits their purpose.
Davis crosses a certain line here where her writing ceases to be a matter of putting objective facts, tied together with the writer’s speculations, on the table and instead becomes a forum for the writer to give her speculations, tied together with some historical facts. The challenge for Davis is to explain why her telling of the Martin Guerre case is intrinsically more deserving of the title History than a top of the line work of historical fiction such as the Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. Killer Angels chronicles the events, in the form of a novel, of the battle of Gettysburg. This is a book that won the Pulitzer Prize, in 1974, and is considered a classic of American literature. No one, as far as I can tell, has ever offered a sustained attack on Shaara’s presentation of the battle of Gettysburg. Nevertheless, no one would ever consider Killer Angels to be a history of the battle. The reason for this is that Michael Shaara, in the end, had the people involved in the battle say and do things that cannot be justified strictly in terms of documentary evidence. In truth, though, one could say that Shaara was simply trying to resurrect the style of historiography used in antiquity by Thucydides and Josephus.
In many respects Killer Angels is superior to Martin Guerre; it is demonstrably evident that Killer Angels is on far firmer grounds, factually, than Martin Guerre. By the standard of historical events, Gettysburg was a very well documented battle. We can track, down to the hour, what the major figures in this battle, such as Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Hancock, Meade and Chamberlain, were doing. All of these people left numerous volumes in memoirs and correspondence discussing their actions and their motives, which Shaara put to good use; we can be fairly certain that whatever was really said at the battle of Gettysburg was not that far off from what Shaara had his characters say. This is in contrast to the events described in Martin Guerre. Neither Martin Guerre nor Beatrice nor Arnund actually left any written records. All that we have is a slim book written by the judge in that case, Jean de Coras, and also Gullaume Le Sueur’s Historia. We have little in the way of solid ground to portray their mindsets. As such anyone who would wish to tell their story is forced to rely on his or her own imagination.
To be fair to Davis, one could argue that unlike Killer Angels, Martin Guerre gives its sources and, unlike Shaara, Davis points out where historical evidence ends and her suppositions begin. My response would be that even if Shaara would have bothered to put out an annotated edition of his work, documenting his sources, pointing out to the reader where he had allowed his imagination to fill in the blanks and offering a defense of these intuitions, Killer Angels would still be considered historical fiction, albeit one that contained a useful “study guide” to the real events.
In the end, Martin Guerre, while it may not fit in as history, cannot merely be pushed aside as historical fiction. Davis may take too many liberties for it to be considered history yet Martin Guerre is not structured like a novel, it is too self-conscious; most of the work contains Davis’ surmises upon the events. Rather than either of these two categories, Martin Guerre should be viewed as a running commentary to a work of either history or historical fiction that unfortunately does not, as of yet, exist. In this sense, Davis has performed an admirable service for the student of history in that she has allowed the reader to get a glimpse into the thought processes of a genuinely talented historian and has offered an invaluable look at the thought processes, struggles and issues that go into writing genuine history.
[1] The type at least that honestly engages the issues instead of merely using real events as a background for the author’s fantasies.
[2] Davis pg. 28
[3] Davis pg. 21
[4] Davis pg. 28-29
[5] ibid pg. 34
[6] ibid pg. 31
[7] ibid pg. 44
[8] ibid
[9] Pasquier actually put out numerous editions of this work throughout his lifetime. The first edition was put out in 1560, this was followed by editions in 1596, 1607 and 1611, in which the author added large amounts of information to. The one Davis makes use of was published in 1621. (See http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/nzdavis.htm)
Friday, September 12, 2008
A Dastardly Plot to Get Me a Bride
As those who know me personally and those reading between the lines of my blog posts know, my recent attempts to get married have failed. Many months invested in wooing a girl have come to naught and I am now back to square one. An anecdote, I recently read, gives me hope of an alternative.
The prospective groom, ignorant of Hebrew, asked his friend to repeat the ritual formula (harei ‘ath mekuddesheth li = behold, you are sanctified unto me) at the ceremony. The friend did so and, taking advantage of the situation (and the young lady), claimed the woman as his legal wife. The community was dumbfounded, yet the woman remained his wife for many years and bore him a family. (Steven Bowman, the Jews of Byzantium pg. 123)
The gears turn in my brain and my fingers twirl in a Monty Burns sort of way. Excellent!
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Professional Sayer of Select Hebrew Sentences
Are you about to get married to a smart, charming young lady between the ages of twenty and thirty, who is Orthodox, likes fantasy, science fiction, and Monty Python? Are you concerned that you might not be able to say those special words? Never fear. This professional sayer of select Hebrew sentences will be there to say them for you to make sure they are said just right. Absolutely free of charge!
(Special bonus if the girl is 5’’10 with frizzy red hair.)
All kidding aside, this story of a guy stealing his friend’s bride from under the wedding canopy is an example of where it may be appropriate to apply the Natalie Zemon Davis principle of history. While men are likely to portray women as passive figures in events, one cannot take this at face value. Davis' book, The Return of Martin Guerre, is about a man, Martin Guerre, who disappeared and abandoned his wife for twelve years. Eight years into his absence another man came and claimed to be Martin Guerre. This man, at least initially, was accepted by the family and by the wife, who bore him a daughter, as Martin Guerre. (Keep in mind that this story happened in sixteenth-century France. There were no photographs or dental records to go by.) Eventually, some people in the family started to question whether this man was who he claimed to be and took him to court. During the court case, all of a sudden, the real Martin Guerre came back. The imposter was executed and Martin Guerre resumed his position as husband and even became the father of the daughter of the fake him. The wife in the story seems to be a completely passive figure. She gets abandoned by her husband. She gets taken in by the imposter and, in the end, she gets taken back by her husband. Davis tries to argue that, in fact, the wife was more proactive than the sources, written by men, might suggest. Davis speculates that the wife was in on the imposture’s scheme and even helped him pull it off by providing him with the necessary information. While I think that Davis, feeling the need to push her feminist ideology, overstates her case, this book does raise valid methodological issues, which historians, no matter what their politics, need to consider.
As in the Martin Guerre story, the girl in our story seems to be completely passive. She is about to be married off to one man, but all of a sudden someone pulls this trick and claims her instead and she seems to go along with it. The fact that this girl, as far as we can tell, did not fight the issue is telling. She could have claimed that she did not attend to marry the friend. If that failed she could have fought for a divorce. She chose not to pursue these options. The fact that she made a choice makes her an active participant. Maybe she really wanted to marry the friend but was being pushed to marry the other person. So when she accepted she did so with the full intention of marrying the friend. She might have even been in on the scheme.
The prospective groom, ignorant of Hebrew, asked his friend to repeat the ritual formula (harei ‘ath mekuddesheth li = behold, you are sanctified unto me) at the ceremony. The friend did so and, taking advantage of the situation (and the young lady), claimed the woman as his legal wife. The community was dumbfounded, yet the woman remained his wife for many years and bore him a family. (Steven Bowman, the Jews of Byzantium pg. 123)
The gears turn in my brain and my fingers twirl in a Monty Burns sort of way. Excellent!
AD
Professional Sayer of Select Hebrew Sentences
Are you about to get married to a smart, charming young lady between the ages of twenty and thirty, who is Orthodox, likes fantasy, science fiction, and Monty Python? Are you concerned that you might not be able to say those special words? Never fear. This professional sayer of select Hebrew sentences will be there to say them for you to make sure they are said just right. Absolutely free of charge!
(Special bonus if the girl is 5’’10 with frizzy red hair.)
All kidding aside, this story of a guy stealing his friend’s bride from under the wedding canopy is an example of where it may be appropriate to apply the Natalie Zemon Davis principle of history. While men are likely to portray women as passive figures in events, one cannot take this at face value. Davis' book, The Return of Martin Guerre, is about a man, Martin Guerre, who disappeared and abandoned his wife for twelve years. Eight years into his absence another man came and claimed to be Martin Guerre. This man, at least initially, was accepted by the family and by the wife, who bore him a daughter, as Martin Guerre. (Keep in mind that this story happened in sixteenth-century France. There were no photographs or dental records to go by.) Eventually, some people in the family started to question whether this man was who he claimed to be and took him to court. During the court case, all of a sudden, the real Martin Guerre came back. The imposter was executed and Martin Guerre resumed his position as husband and even became the father of the daughter of the fake him. The wife in the story seems to be a completely passive figure. She gets abandoned by her husband. She gets taken in by the imposter and, in the end, she gets taken back by her husband. Davis tries to argue that, in fact, the wife was more proactive than the sources, written by men, might suggest. Davis speculates that the wife was in on the imposture’s scheme and even helped him pull it off by providing him with the necessary information. While I think that Davis, feeling the need to push her feminist ideology, overstates her case, this book does raise valid methodological issues, which historians, no matter what their politics, need to consider.
As in the Martin Guerre story, the girl in our story seems to be completely passive. She is about to be married off to one man, but all of a sudden someone pulls this trick and claims her instead and she seems to go along with it. The fact that this girl, as far as we can tell, did not fight the issue is telling. She could have claimed that she did not attend to marry the friend. If that failed she could have fought for a divorce. She chose not to pursue these options. The fact that she made a choice makes her an active participant. Maybe she really wanted to marry the friend but was being pushed to marry the other person. So when she accepted she did so with the full intention of marrying the friend. She might have even been in on the scheme.
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