[Ansteorra] Why aren't we doing this?

[uillecc]

The Renaissance was a regrettable consequence of the Florentine 
invention of bookkeeping, which helped them manage the money they loaned 
at double-digit interest to the merchants and speculators who took 
advantage of their central Mediterranean location to buy and sell 
commodities and goods raising many folks from humble origins to the 
ranks of the Nouveau Riche,  which unfortunately was at odds with the 
medieval notions that the good people were poor and pious and that this 
world was meant as punishment in preparation for the heavenly realm.

These Nouveau Riche responded by looking for ways to make themselves 
feel better about themselves.  Aiding the Greeks (not the ancient ones- 
they were already beyond help) fend off the Turks seemed to offer the 
opportunity  to protect  Christendom, and maybe make a little on the 
side... While in Greece, they found lots of antiquities that could be 
bought cheaply, and oh yeah... a bunch of musty, moldy rat-eaten old 
books-- all of which they took back to Italy... When they studied these 
books they found some interesting technical stuff and also information 
about a pre-christian high culture in which men of means could be both 
wealthy and well respected...  This inspired a man named Medieci and 
others in his circle to want to recreate this high Roman culture....  
Brunelleschi built a dome, re-invented geometric perspective, influenced 
a young painter given the unfortunate name of Ugly Tom to paint frescoes 
which took Italian painting from the near medieval Giotto to the 
attention of a cantankerous quarrelsome stone-cutter/sculptor named 
Buonarroti who never got to finish his masterwork of a tomb, because the 
Pope made him paint all of the time.  Never the less, this Buonarroti 
guy bridged the Renaissance to the High Renaissance and pre-staged the 
era of the "imperfect pearl" with a phase that was derisively called 
Mannerist....

The main High Idea of the Renaissance was maybe  "Greed is good"? and 
"He who dies with the most toys wins"?  Austerity fell out of fashion, 
posturing became the rage.....

History is all in how you look at the historical....

My cheek seems to have a tongue stuck in it....
uillecc



On 11/5/2010 2:40 PM, Jay Rudin wrote:
> The first kingdom newsletter I read, in the seventies, had a letter from somebody who was quitting because the SCA was no longer what it used to be.  Don Quixote was about the lost knightly virtues; the Renaissance was a re-birth, trying to return to lost ideals; King Arthur was trying to hold back the encroaching barbarism; the Middle Ages wished for the glories of Rome; Rome mourned for the loss of the great Greek society, which pined for the lost Golden Age.
>
> So, yes, things are worse than they were.  They are always worse than they were.  Meanwhile we have more excellent armor, more period pavilions, more authentic fighting, more period costumes, than we ever had before.  And most of the entries in kingdom A&S in the early eighties (including some winners) would, if entered today, cause the A&S minister to inform the artist that they really weren't good enough to be entered.
>
> There are more authentic things to look at.
> There are more modern things to look at.
> There are more things to look at.
>
> So look at the parts you're here for.
>
> Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin
>
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