I'm not really too happy about this new Blogspot change but one must make do. This is a bit of an informative post, since now a year after my graduation, I now feel at ease enough to get back into doing a little self study.
I do love history, but when looking for books outside of academia, I rarely find anything satsifying. I'm not too intrested in what battle was won or lost, rather I'd prefer to know about the peoples and customs. A very good source of this then is to look at journals of those who travelled and experienced those things first hand.
The first I came into contact with this. It was with "The Voyage of the Alceste etc. etc." when my professor recommended it, in order to see what the first westerners thought of the asians they met. Of course throughout the book, the captain thinks that it is necessary to judge all the foreign women of whom he comes across in looks, which makes me laugh.
The women themselves are just as curious, he details how, even if they were hidden away, when they arrived, these women would break free of their bondage and run to catch a glimpse of them.
Since recently I've been thinking about Mongolia, through the artwork of a certain person and since I remember that when I studied religion, it was the Shamanistic mongolian religion that I found the most strange and interesting. I therefore read the journal of a monk who was sent by the pope in order to secure Christendom against the threat of the Mongol invasion.
When in Hungary myself, I often saw statues and saw that it was a big theme for the Hungarians about "barbarians" invading from outside. I read that if the Emperor of the Mongols at that time had not been "supposedly" poisoned then Bathy's golden horde would have extended beyond Hungary but because of that he withdrew. Something I think that Niccolo Machiavelli would have said was his greatest mistake.
Anyway upon reading this I came across some other themes that fitted in with what I had been reading in a Manga called "Bride's tale" by Kaoru Mori. When studying I found that, in inner asia, there were two sorts of people, those who lived in smaller tribes and were of no particular threat and those who had the larger "clans" which created such beings as the huns and mongols. Anyway, I assume but I have no reference for this, that the family in Bride's tales is of the smaller tribe but that they share the same traditions.
Indeed in the last book, it tells the story of Talas (maybe a reference to a battle fought) who was married into a family and as each brother died of some strange illness (black widow ha) she married each of them in turn.
In Christendom (though again I cannot be bothered to dig out a reference for this, but I remember when doing the tudors that this was a bone of contention for Henry VII when taking Catherine as his wife) this was seen as incest - that is, the wife of a brother marrying his brother after death. This then leads us to an intresting story which John the monk tells us in his journal.
It seemed that under the Mongols there were various russian states, which wanted to keep their own dukedoms even though they pledged allegiance to the Mongols. Whether this was a good policy or not, you will have to read "The Prince" to decide. When upon the death of one of these dukes, the duke's brother and his widow, came to Bathy and asked that they retain his dukedom even after his death.
Of course in their tradition it is normal for the brother to marry his brother's widow, in order to keep everything "in the family" as it were (again I have no reference, but if you read Kitagawa's book, Religious traditions of Asia, you may find it in there) so he said that this brother in order to keep the dukedom must marry the widow.
The widow, in a fit of gutsy which I admire, said that she would rather die. However for some reason the mongols took it upon themselves to make sure that this happened. The details are a little hazy, but John writes down that the poor man "confined" and is crying and begging not to be forced to commit incest with his brother's wife. I think that the phrase "held down" is also used.
I remember that when reading a book about Eleanor of Aquitane (since no one deems it fit to write anything about the "loser" king Louis VII) that the pope also intervened in their sexual problems...
It is intresting to read, as I seem to have forgotten that there was a China before the manchu's took it over and next up is to catch up on what happened to Kubilai Khan.
