A Sad Story in Amsterdam

We've all heard of The Diary of Anne Frank. I must admit, I have not read the book, though I have wanted to for awhile. Maybe I'll put it on my reading list. But the other day I was watching Samantha Brown: Passport to Europe on the Travel Channel, and she visited Amsterdam. During the show, she visited the room where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis for two years. She looked at the walls, covered in pictures and cut-outs of famous Hollywood celebrities and Princess Elizabeth of Windsor-- the current Elizabeth II. During the war, the two girls were about the same age; you can see how Anne might have looked to Elizabeth (who stayed in London during the German Blitz, despite the danger) as a courageous sign of hope. I started to cry. Maybe I'm just hormonal right now or something, but even without having read the book, it just felt so incredibly sad. Especially when it was revealed that Anne had always wanted to be a writer, and hoped that her words would bring happiness to the world.

But I also felt sad because of a paper I wrote last year considering converso identity. During the late 16th and early 17th century Jews and conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity, whether sincerely or for political purposes) were driven from the Iberian Peninsula during-- what else?-- the Spanish Inquisition, and later, less mentioned, the Portuguese Inquisition. They didn't have much of a choice; all those who openly identified as Jews were expelled from the kingdom, and all those who identified as conversos ran the risk of being burned for heresy. (Jews could not technically be tried by the Inquisition because they were not heretics, having never professed to believe in Jesus Christ and having never been baptised; heresy, as defined by the Inquisition, can only be committed by baptised Christians. Conversos, having been baptised, were the ones in the most danger.) Many conversos, of course were sincere in their practice of Christianity. Many others practiced a hybrid version of Judaism and Christianity. This was the most dangerous of all, by Inquisition standards. Some practiced this hybrid religion without really knowing why-- they lit candles on Friday and abstained from pork without a real understanding of what they were doing, just doing it because it was tradition. Even many Jews in Spain had little understanding of their religion by the 17th century, but of course, that didn't really matter to the Inquistion.

So they fled. Most of them fled straight to Amsterdam. Why? Because in the 17th century, Amsterdam was a place of tolerance. It also had a familiar Spanish influence, being in the Netherlands. Amsterdam had a large Jewish community, made up of not only the Marrano Jews of 'the Nation' (a term used to describe the diasporic community created by the Inquisition), but also of Sephardic Jews (of Spanish and Portuguse descent, also, but who had relocated from the Iberian peninsula prior to the Inquisition and never undergone the converso experience; also from other Mediterranean regions) and Ashkenazi Jews. The laws of Amsterdam allowed them to practice their religion in relative peace, and many conversos, who had perhaps been willing to actually convert to Christianity, found in their new home a connection to their Jewish faith. While not a 'return' to the religion for many individuals, since many of them had actually grown up as Christians or pseudo-Christian-Jews for several generations past, it constituted a change to their old practices, towards a more pure form of Judiasm (aided by the Sephardim). Though not all of them accepted every tenet of Rabbinic Judaism, they certainly began to build towards a greater religious understanding. Many conversos soon became ex-conversos.

In Amsterdam, they created a religious community, an intellectual community, and a community of service. They had dowry institutions for poor members of 'the Nation,' they developed literary academies, and they began to practice Judaism without hiding in the back room. In the paper, I explored the stories of individual members of 'the Nation,' such as Maria Nunes, who, according to legend, become the object of affection to a young English duke who paraded her through London, introduced her to Queen Elizabeth I, and asked for her hand in marriage. She, however, refused him-- choosing to live openly as a Jew in Amsterdam, than as a Christian in London. There was Daniel Levi de Barrios, a Portuguese-Jewish poet and author living in Amsterdam, who adhered to both Christian and Jewish principles depending on whether he lived in Spain or the Netherlands, but who revered the Jewish community in Amsterdam and was considered a member of 'the Nation' by other members of 'the Nation.'

And, two centuries later, Amsterdam was the home of Anne Frank. Samantha Brown quoted that only 1 in 16 Jews living in Amsterdam survived the Holocaust. In this case, my knowledge of history made that fact even sadder than it already is; such a beautiful, intelligent, established, and thriving community diminished. The descendants of Maria Nunes and Daniel Levi de Barrios, the children of the ancient Sephardim of the Mediterranean, and the Ashkenazim of central and eastern Europe... all gone. Their safe haven, once again, become a place of persecution and death.

Sometimes, history hurts. Still, no matter how much it hurts us to remember, it's best not to forget.

(Anne Frank)

(If you want info on the subject not from Wikipedia, I have an academic bibliography/paper on 16th and 17th century converso identity which I can send to you by e-mail. Just leave a comment)

A Brief Note on the Minuet

Currently, I am reading The Sylph by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. First published anonymously around 1777 when Georgiana was twenty-one, the book follows the adventures of Julia, a young girl from the country who's city-bred husband, Lord Stanley, whisks her off to London where she becomes part of the depraved and oh-so-exciting life of the ton. The book, written as an epistolary, is comprised of letters between Julia and her sister, Julia and her father, Lord Stanley and his friends, etc. I imagine that soon there will be letters from the elusive Sylph, but I'm not that far along yet. With everything else going on, I have scant time for pleasure reading.

But I do know this much: the book is shocking in all of the most delicious ways. The critiques Georgiana levels at fashion, marriage, and the life of an aristocratic young woman caused scandal in her own day, and for 18th-century historians like me, it continues to elicit shocked laughter, gasps, and even, at times, blushes. What, so you think the 18th century was prim and proper, and that a girl all-too-familiar with the 'anything goes' attitude of 21st-century America should not find anything shocking in an old book? Ha. Obviously, I need to educate you in the seamier side of 18th century living. Some of it though, you're right, comes from adopting an 18th century mindset. When you know how they thought, what was considered right and wrong, what was considered scandalous and shocking, and the politics of the time, the book takes on much deeper layers and even the slightest remark stands out as a major societal infraction.

In particular, I'm thinking of the minuet. In one of her letters, Julia writes [emphasis my own], "Nay, I begin to think, I might as well have learnt nothing; and that the time and expence which were bestowed on my education were all lost, since I even do not know how to walk a minuet properly."

I gasped aloud upon reading that sentence. Some of you out there might understand. Julia couldn't dance the minuet. Well! I never! A girl of society, living in London, unable to dance the minuet! Oh, wouldn't they all make merry of her after a ball; her dancing skills (or lack thereof) would be the talk of the town for weeks. No wonder Lord Stanley-- in his prideful, arrogant, stand-offish way-- worried for her! The minuet was the most important dance of all. At a ball, each couple would, one-by-one, enter the center of the dance floor starting with the most important couple in the room (the King and Queen, in England, or the Governor and his wife, in the colonies) and everyone would watch. A graceful minuet could make you; a bad one could break you. Oh, Julia! The ton is a treacherous place.

What? Not shocking to you? Well, maybe after a few lessons in eighteenth-century society I'll be able to find something that makes even the most jaded among you gasp in surprise!

Harry Potter; or The 18th-Century in a Modern Cinema

As I mentioned last post, I'm rather busy at the moment and haven't had much time to go through my materials to put together a really theoretical post-- our next major topic to cover is going to be either "History and Memory" (one of my favorites!) or "Public History" (also really fun!) depending on how I feel once I sit down with my old papers/notes/articles/experiences.

But for now, I don't want to leave you without some historical fun, so here it is-- The Harry Potter midnight opening as an 18th-century playgoing experience. What? you think. It's a cinematic release. Cinema didn't exist in the 18th century. And the movie takes place in a very modern world despite the magical aspects. How is this at all 18th century?

In the 18th-century, audience members attended the theatre to see-and-be-seen. The lights remained lit through the entirety of the show, so wearing your best clothes, sitting in the best seats you could afford, and speaking with the best people you knew ensured your position in society. Whether an aristocrat in a box seat, an artisan who saved up for a seat in the pit, or a chimney sweep in the gallery, the theatre was about seeing and being seen. Additionally, like in the modern cinema (though not in the modern playhouse) food was allowed in the theatre. Thomas Jefferson paid for bowls of punch to be served in the pit with his friends, and Richard Cross, the prompter at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, writes about actors being pelted with food from the rabble in the galleries-- or, alternately, not being pelted with food. And, though not exactly a sentimental age, in the 18th-century the plays made people really laugh and really cry. Men note in their diaries how this or that tragedy reduced them to tears; the idea of a stiff upper lip or stoic manliness had not entered into the collective mindset. Perhaps most alien to us, people talked during the show. Aristocrats often carried on with games of cards in their boxes during the mainpiece, leaving your seat to visit with friends during the performance was not unheard of, and the "gallery gods," as the poorer sort were known, dictated what they wanted to see on the stage. Often they were the fruit-throwers, they called for encores, or certain epilogues, and they cheered or jeered every actor on the stage. Audience members also shouted out well-timed jeers, praises, or heckles which could sometimes get as big a laugh as the actor onstage; sometimes the actor responded back, much like at a stand-up comedy show. Also, audience members knew the actors on stage-- if not personally, they had seen them perform any number of times live, before their eyes-- and they had seen most of the plays probably a dozen times. The idea that they had some kind of personal connection to the performances, actors, and characters permeated theatrical events. The theatre was a noisy, rowdy place compared with our ideas of quietly observing a show.

(Hogarth's print of an 18th-century audience)

So how does this connect to Harry Potter?

I'll grant you, the cinema aspect changes things a bit, and so does the sitting in the dark. In fact, there are 100 thousand differences-- this is the 21st-century after all, and that was the 18th. I'm not trying to say that I felt transported back to an 18th-century theatre because trust me, I know, and I didn't.

But overall, I think the Harry Potter midnight openings might be the closest approximation to experiencing what it felt like to sit in an 18th-century audience of anything else available today. Sure, there are recreated 17th and 18th century theatres that would give us an idea of what it looked like for the audience members, but we still retain our 21st-century sensibilities while attending those shows-- we respectfully, almost passively, watch the action on stage. We clap politely during the curtain call, perhaps giggle at funny bits, but otherwise we remain an orderly, quiet audience. This is especially true in movie theatres, where the experience is one of anonymity, entering with the theatre already rather darkened, sitting quietly munching popcorn, glaring angrily at the teenage girls carrying on a conversation in the middle of the film. Even the idea of dressing to the 9's in a theatre or cinema has disappeared; on Broadway jeans are now acceptable. Moreover, during most professional plays that we see we do not know the actors or the characters; even during most cinematic releases, even if we like a particular actor, we have only two hours in which to come to know a certain character. It's only after buying the DVD and watching the film ten more times that we really, really love the characters on screen.

But at the midnight opening of the 7th Harry Potter film, the entire audience knew the characters on the screen. We love Harry, Hermoine, and Ron, we hate/love Voldemort. We know what to expect from the story since we've read the books, we feel as if we know Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson personally; they grew up in front of us. Each of us feels some sort of personal connection to the movies because for most of us in that theatre, Harry Potter defined our childhood and young adulthood. I know I started reading the books at 11 years old-- the same age as Harry Potter in the 1st book-- and here I am at 23 excited to see the boy wizard I grew up with in his second-to-last film. But it's not just that we have a personal connection to the performance, it's that we flaunt it.

Even before the show starts, something is different. Instead of wearing normal jeans and a t-shirt, most of the audience members are dressed up. Some theatres even have costume contests. Here, the movie becomes not about seeing the performance, but also about observing your fellow audience members. Who has the best costume? The most creative? Who knows the books well enough to understand the Luna costume or the Tonks costume? And inside the theatre, groups of friends laugh and talk loudly before the show, popcorn and candy and soda abound. Every time the theatre manager (who knew most of us, actually, since I saw it in a very small town) entered to make an announcement the packed theatre erupted in cheers. Once the film started the cheering almost never stopped. We cheered the Warner Bros. logo, we cheered when Harry, Ron, and Hermoine all appeared on the screen together for the first time, we whimpered in sadness at the vaguely heartwrenching moments, we screamed at the top of our lungs in fear at the scary moments, we laughed uproariously at somewhat lame jokes (because it's George and Fred Weasley, and we love them and want to support them!). And, when a certain character which most people like died, at least half of the theatre cried audibly. A few people even shouted things at the screen (which did annoy other theatregoers, as it did in 18th-century theatres, if we can judge from personal letters and diary entries).

And can you imagine if the projector had broken or something? There would have been a riot (very 18th-century).

At the end of the night, I realized that going to see a play in a recreated playhouse would teach me much about the technical and practical aspects of theatricals in the 18th-century, but no modern audience would ever treat actors on stage with the same noisy, loud, and what we might consider 'disrespectful' attitude of an 18th-century audience. We don't allow plays to throw us into a passion-- how many people proudly claim that movies don't make them cry, or shamefully admit they do? But for some reason-- maybe the movie, the hour, the audience composition-- the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had just such an audience. They were loud, excited, passionate, and involved.

By positioning the Harry Potter opening in such a historical context, I felt that I, and all of us in that theatre, were part of a larger, ever-continuing human experience. While I don't recommend that we start playing cards during plays again, or walk across the stage to greet our friends, maybe every now and then letting ourselves be collectively taken over by a performance experience might be a good thing. What actor wouldn't appreciate an entire theatre crying over his character's death scene? What actor doesn't love to hear laughter and applause during his funniest moment? What audience member doesn't like to imagine that just for the night they are part of something larger than a solitary, passive moment?

(Photo from here)

What's in a Name?

I'm afraid I haven't had much time to put together a very theoretical or even informative post during the past weekend-- it was very busy and a little crazy-- so instead here is a post written purely for fun: names in the microfilm. Oh yes, I have seen some absolutely ridiculous names come up while going through all of these 18th-century Court Order Books, and everyday it seems that someone else has a name that makes me wonder what their parents were thinking. In some cases they just simply weren't, and in other cases, they had no idea how we here in the 21st-century might construe their child's name.

(Photo Found Here; our post titles are purely coincidental)

First of all, there are the first-name-last-name names. So far, I have come across Owen Owens, William Williams, and Alexander Alexander. Seriously? Who on earth thought this a good idea? Interestingly enough, lots of William Williams' and Alexander Alexanders' must have been running around colonial America, because two other men by those same names built one of the earliest colonial theatres for David Douglass (pardon me for bringing in my thesis).

Then there are the anachronisms. William Wallace I noticed right off. That name conjures up images of Mel Gibson in blue face paint, and when William Wallace's last will and testament came up in the court records, I felt sure he must have yelled "FREEDOM" as he died. Except that, this wasn't the William Wallace. He just happened to have the same name. But that's not so bad-- maybe his parents were just exhibiting some Scottish pride after the '15 or the '45, depending on when they came to America. (Note: the '15 and '45 refer to two major Jacobite uprisings in 1715 and 1745, both of which the English Whig government quelled, the latter of which the government quelled and then destroyed the Highland Scottish way of life... what was left of it, anyway, after nearly all of the clans were wiped out at the Battle of Culloden.)

But what about Charles Dickens? How could his parents have known? Or-- one of my favorites-- Barnabus Bailey. Barnum and Bailey, the circus, would not exist for another hundred years or so... but now poor Barnabus Bailey's name makes me think of a ringmaster, dancing elephants, and a bearded lady. And, one of the worst, though not exactly an anachronism-- a girl named Delina Devine. That just... sounds like a stripper name. Clearly, her parents did not expect her to star in low-budget pornos or to dance on a pole-- that concept would have been extremely foreign to them-- but really? Delina Devine.

Then the Biblical names. That's not so bad, you think, we have those today. However, when two brothers named Zebulon and Reuben Harrison come up together, you just have to wonder if they had brothers named Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Napthali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Benjamin, and Joseph. And did Joseph have a really awesome coat? And what about Napthalum Gregory? Now that's an epic name!

And some people just have funny last names, which they can't help. A man with the last name of "Took" made me think of Pippin the hobbit in The Lord of the Rings, and Alexander Tadford, Jr. just sounds adorable. And poor, poor David Lairdass. At least, I think there was an "i" in the first part, but I was trying to be generous. It sure looked a lot like... well, you get it. And, while not strictly a last name, the combination of Casper Clemmons makes me smile.

But then. Then there are the parents that you just have to wonder about. The first name that made me go "Ehhh??" was Enonomous Decker. At first I thought, "Oh, the man must want to stay anonymous in this case." But then I realized that, no no, his name was Enonomous Decker. He came up several times, even, in a debt case and acknowledging a deed of bargain and sale (or something or other). You can't remain anonymous with your last name right there, nor are you allowed to anonymously be a defendant or anonymously acknowledge certain things in open court. That concept just... wasn't there. His name was Enonomous. What???

The name that really takes the cake, however, is this: Grizzle Cale. She came up in the records when she and her husband, Jacob Cale, acknowledged a deed of lease and release. Grizzle. I did a double-take. I tried to make the letters say something else. But no. Grizzle Cale. She even came up a few years later in the records, doing something or other with Jacob, and still-- Grizzle. What were her parents thinking??? I told my friend Macs about this one, and I said, "Perhaps they didn't want their child getting confused with all the other Marys and Anns and Elizabeths and Sarahs" and he said, "Well it worked, didn't it? 200 years later and here we are, still discussing their little girl."

Somehow, Grizzle Cale intrigues me more than all of the others. How did she and Jacob meet? Was it arranged or did they love each other (hey, companionate marriages were on the rise!)? Was she pretty? Shrewish? Kind? Funny? Obedient? Fiesty? Could she read or write? Who were her friends? What did she dream of?

And why did her parents choose the name Grizzle?

Just a few fun historical tidbits, here at Why History.

George III, Part II

Recap: George III, King of England, pretty tyrannical. Here's his picture again, for those of you who are still a little hazy (or lazy, and don't want to scroll down to the previous post).

So last time, I told you about how this man was tyrannical and idiotic. The Whigs detested him, he detested the Whigs, and it appeared that he wanted to destroy the Parliamentary system as it had operated for centuries (sort of). He wanted to be a benevolent despot. He even threatened to the leave the country twice because he was unhappy with the way things were going for him. But then, what if all of the tryanny was a simple misunderstanding? What if George III was simply misunderstood?

Let's look at his upbringing. First of all, the House of Hanover had been established in England in 1715 after the death of Queen Anne. George's predecessors were quite Germanic and in their home they ruled as absolute monarchs. Even though George had been born in England and spoke English as his first language, he was both a constitutional monarch in Great Britain, and an absolute monarch in Hanover. Plus, he was brought up in Kew Gardens (it's a house, not just a garden) by his mother, Augusta, and-- get this-- Lord Bute. Interesting, no? His mother and Bute kept him from Court, kept him from politics, kept him even from his grandfather King George II, and taught him to despise constitutional monarchy; Augusta herself revered Frederick the Great. She told him to fashion himself as "The Patriot King" of the people and to free himself of the Whigs, who purported to speak for the people and to defend the constitution. And there were rumors that Augusta and Lord Bute carried on a torrid affair...

So, when George became king in 1760 at the age of 22, he didn't really know anybody involved with either the court or parliament. He had been too sheltered. He didn't really know anything about being king, especially not as a constitutional monarch. He was a young, unknown king who needed guidance, which made politicians believe that they would have the upper hand for awhile. What actually happened, though, was that George dismissed them and put Lord Bute in their place, because he needed someone near him that he could trust. Lord Bute was literally one of the only people he knew who had the qualifications necessary for politics. He just wanted someone near him that he could trust. Plus, after interviews with Chatham and Newcastle-- the Whigs he dismissed-- he cried. They were just too much for him.

Moreover, he was shy, he stammered, he was physically frail, and had a chemical imbalance in his brain which we now know was porphyria, an extremely painful disease which now we can treat. It manifests as a neurological disorder, or "madness", though the patient isn't actually mad. We know that now; then, however, they just knew that he passed purple urine sometimes and had bouts of insanity. Given all of this, no one really took him seriously. They thought he would die soon, so they searched for an heir and regent-- politicians listened to Augusta and her friend, the Duke of Cumberland, but not George. This was upsetting to the young King.

And here's another a kicker-- he didn't inherit a united Whig party. His chaotic government can't exactly be blamed on his dismissing the Whigs, because though they presented a united front until 1760ish, looking back to 1756-1757 we can see that their public unity hid the fact that Newcastle and Chatham hated each other and that the Bedford faction ran their own brand of politics. If anything, we could accuse George III of not having enough experience to impose unity on the factionalism he inherited. (Seriously, there were more Whig parties and coalitions and factions than you can shake a stick at. Perhaps one day I'll actually try to explain it all, but right now it's just too much and not pertinent to my defense of George.)

Oh, and that General Warrants affair, in which he arrested John Wilkes? He didn't just pull that concept out of the air. He consulted with Lord Halifax, a senior lawyer, about what to do with the insulting and somewhat subversive situation, and Lord Halifax suggested that the best legal recourse would be general warrants. He was actually trying to work within the boundaries of the law that time!

The American situation, of course, came hot on the heels of the general warrants affair, and George III wanted to win badly, even after the rest of the country had given up. Why? Well, to use a Cold War anachronism, he thought it would create a domino effect. If the 13 colonies went, then next might go the West Indies, Canada, and all of Britain's empire... and he was kind of right, because in 1779-1782 Ireland rose up in a serious patriot movement. And those Whigs, who sympathized because they believed George a tyrant? They provoked his hatred by parading around court in buff and blue, the colors of Washington's army.

Finally, the forcing out of the Fox-North coalition seemed to George within his rights. The monarch, at the time, selected the prime minister. It was his prerogative. But the Whigs had challenged that prerogative by forcing themselves on George and 'storming the closet', as it were. George, in fact, said that their coalition challenged the constitution, which they themselves swore to protect! As King, he felt that he had the right to dismiss them after their behavior. Perhaps he didn't do it in the nicest way, but Charles James Fox had been one of those Whigs who but a few years earlier paraded around court in his buff and blue. But then, he and Fox never got along.

In fact, during one bout of porphyria, everyone knew he truly had gone mad when he called Pitt the Younger his enemy and Fox his friend. CRAZY!

Overall, you could argue that George III defended the traditional role of a monarch. Many things he did, which Whigs construed as controversial, had never been contested by any parliament in the past. He really felt that he had done nothing wrong and that it was Fox and the Whigs who affronted constitutional practices... but don't forget that I did tell you that he despised constitutional monarchy and wanted to be a benevolent despot...

So what do you think??? Was George a tyrant or misunderstood? And remember, as my tutor Leslie taught me, every professor (or person who writes blogs?) is a con-man. We want you to believe our point of view, so we are going to present evidence which upholds our arguments. History is kind of like one big debate round, where each side tries to establish a certain truth which might have never even existed, or, if it did, only for a brief long-past moment.

Just another little lesson on taking sides, from your friend here at Why History.