#culture power and personality in medieval france

[histoireettralala]

Normandy and Champagne, a paradox

One of the paradoxes of French history is that the duchy of Normandy, subject to the monarchy since the early thirteenth century, emerged from the Middle Ages with stronger provincial institutions than the county of Champagne, which was not definitively attached to the crown until 1361. By the early sixteenth century, the old Norman Exchequer had grown into the Parlement of Rouen, while in Champagne the Jours de Troyes withered away and the county remained under the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris. Although Rouen and Troyes are about the same distance from Paris, the Norman city became a provincial capital, while Troyes was subject to the influence and administration of the central government and Champagne became a province without a capital.

The reign of Philip the Fair was a turning point in the development of the two provinces, and the explanation of the greater dependency of Champagne contains an ironic element. When Philip Augustus conquered Normandy, its administrative and judicial institutions were independent of the monarchy and there was a clear demarcation between the rights and obligations which were Norman and those who were French. Since the king replaced his predecessor by conquest, the simplest way for him to govern his new territory was to keep the institutions separate but to replace the administration with men loyal to his court. The feudal history of Champagne before its acquisition was quite different, for its counts never had the independent power of the Norman dukes, and the western frontier of the county was permeable to royal influence. People from Meaux, for example, could go more easily to nearby Paris than to Troyes, and since the king exercised considerable feudal authority in the county, many religious houses and some lay vassals found it advantageous to invoke the king's power against the count. Even before Philip the Fair became count there were plenty of excuses for royal administrators to act in Champagne, while there was no reason for a royal agent outside Normandy to interfere with another agent of the king inside the duchy.

When Philip became both king and count, there was no longer an independent administration with an interest in opposing royal influence. There was also pressure within Champagne to take cases to the more powerful court, and litigants on expense accounts (like the communal office of Provins) undoubtedly preferred to plead in Paris rather than in the moribund city of Troyes. The flow of cases from Champagne to the Parlement could only have been checked if the government of Philip IV had made an effort to prohibit it, as Philip III had earlier attempted to limit the cases coming to Paris from provinces which had royal baillis. But Philip the Fair, count only in his wife's name, had no reason to build a strong local judicial system in Champagne. The masters of the Hours were not recruited from the county but sent from the royal court, and cases could be judged in Troyes or Paris as convenience dictated. Finally, when it was apparent that the monarchy might not be able to appoint the masters of the Jours indefinitely, Philip established the right of appeal from the Jours to the Parlement, a principle it was not necessary to impose on Normandy. The great centralizer of medieval France subordinated the Jours but permitted the Exchequer to remain relatively independent because in his day the monarchy had a firmer hold on Normandy than on Champagne.

John F. Benton & others- Culture, Power and Personality in Medieval France

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hello Dapper. I don’t really expect too much about this, but do you have any ideas for Wargs? They have an interesting relationship with goblins and are weird in that they’re essentially sapient wolf monsters, but I don’t think they’re ever really used that creatively.

Monsters Reimagined: Wargs, wolf panics, and the Economics of Lupophobia

While the surface level answer is pretty simple (warg is a conversion of varger, an old Norse way to refer to mythological wolves like Fenrir) there's actually a surprising amount of material to drill into here on the topic of sapient wolf monsters, especially for someone like me who has a interest in moral panics and mass hysteria events. Wolves were effectively a boogyman for pre-industrial societies, a deep seated generational fear that we only recognize today through cultural relics like the big bad wolf or boy who cried wolf.

TLDR: If you want to do something interesting with wargs beyond just "wolves that talk" I'd advise playing to their folk / fairytale roots. They're creatures of embodied dread, drawn from the stuff of the feywild to sow fear among those who would travel off the path or too close to the wilderness. This lets you tell interesting stories about how the party/major characters respond to fear: Does fear of being attacked in the dark drive the party to make risky decisions that might endanger their quest? How do the villagers react when the wolves are very literally at the door, demanding just one of their neighbours as a meal in exchange for safety?

I'd also advise getting weirder with a warg's powers, playing into that fear of the unknown by doing unexpected things. The party can fight off a pack of wolves, sure, but what does it mean when the lead wolf rips off the bard's shadow and takes off into the night?

Background: If you want a window into the headspace of wolf-panic, think about the neigh omnipresent fear of sharks created by the Jaws franchise. Children who have never seen the movie, let alone seen a shark in person can become irrationally afraid of getting into deep water because they've absorbed the pervasive cultural phobia, which goes onto shape environmental policy as sharks are overhunted or killed out of spite for their perceived threat.

So it was for wolves, even after they were largely hunted to near extinction by medieval and postmedieval societies, the fear of them was so ingrained into cultural traditions that wolf and werewolf panics were a thing that went hand in hand with witchtrails. France had a country wide one as late as the 1760s and the movie based on it ended up inspiring Bloodborne. Alternatively look at the anti-wolf efforts during the colonization of the Americas, right up to the opposition to reintroducing wolves back to Yellowstone park.

On that note (and because we can't have a Monsters Reimagined without some kind of class analysis), lets talk about how these fears are propagated: On many levels it makes sense for everyday people to be afraid of wolves, they're a hunting species that can absolutely pose a danger to us, and when you're living or travelling outside the protection of a settlement you really are vulnerable to a coordinated pack of carnivores running you down.

However, the primary threat that wolves pose to humans isn't predation, it's property damage, specifically in how they kill livestock. While we can talk about individual farmsteads beset by beasts, in reality the herds that wolves were most likely to prey upon belonged to the landowning classes, powerful people who had a profit incentive in seeing wolves driven off or exterminated. This is where you get bounties on dead wolves, not just paying for the value of the hide but actively rewarding people for going out and killing as many wolves as possible to the point of it becoming a profession. This practice has existed for MILLENIA and is still active today, primarily in places where big agriculture influences governments.

It seems incidental at first but then you realize that it fits the model of just about every other kind of cultural panic: widespread ignorance and fear that just so happens to mobilize the populace in a way that financially benefits a select few. You can see the same thing happening today in england with badgers of all things, which have been identified with the local dairy industry as a threat to their herds. This is not only led them to petition the government to cull the badger population, but to put out anti-badger propaganda, eventually turning it into a culture war issure to the point where conservative mouthpieces like Jeremy Clarkson openly encourages killing and gassing badgers on sight.

Returning to the land of fantasy for now: I think it's worth taking the idea of the warg and mixing it with a few other "black dog" cultural archetypes, which can also include the creatures like the shuck or church grimm. In this instance the warg is a sort of curse made manifest, the fear of a haunted place given literal teeth. People who transgress into these forbidden spaces find themselves pursued by a manifestation that dogs them till they're exhausted and vulnerable, much like a wolf harrying its prey.

The bhargest is also of special interest here, considering how I like to relate goblins back to the feywild. You could easily see bhargests as agents of fey that feed on human fear, leading a pack of goblins or hobs that occupy the desolate lands they've called to haunt. My version of Maglubiyet would also delight in employing such creatures as his emissaries.

Going back to the vargr/ Norse mythology angle, it's interesting that most of the wolves that show up are destined to devour something, whether it be a god or celestial certanty like the moon and sun. It's like the concept of an inevitable chase is so fundimental to what a wolf IS that it became a theme of ragnarok's inevitable certantly. Consider having certan packs of wargs be offspring of some fenrir style god eater, beasts of forboding doom who's mere presence is an omen of ill times.

Alternatively, if you wanted to play on the big bad wolf angle, give wargs the ability to take on flimsy human disguises, all the better to get close to their pray and sow fear among the townsfolk. Historical wolf panics after all are not all that different than serial killer panics, and it'd be a fun twist on a traditional werewolf adventure to have the party on a creature that didn't play by the usual lycanthropic rules.

Artsource

[male1971]

The Origins of The Wolfman

The story of Universal's "The Wolfman" (1941) is one of the most iconic werewolf tales in cinema, but its origins are a blend of older folklore, literature, and mythology. The concept of werewolves has been around for thousands of years, long before Universal's monster movies.

Origins of "The Wolfman" Story

The 1941 film "The Wolfman", written by Curt Siodmak, introduced many of the tropes we now associate with werewolves, such as the use of silver to kill them, the transformation during a full moon, and the notion of the curse being passed on through a bite. While Siodmak invented much of this for the film, he drew from centuries of werewolf lore and mythology, weaving them into a modern narrative that fit the Universal monster film canon.

Who Invented Werewolves?

Werewolves have been part of human mythology for millennia, and there is no single person or culture credited with "inventing" them. Instead, werewolves have appeared in various forms across different cultures:

Ancient Greece and Rome: One of the earliest werewolf stories comes from Greek mythology. The legend of "Lycaon", a king who angered Zeus and was transformed into a wolf, is where we get the term "lycanthropy." Roman authors like Ovid also wrote about men turning into wolves in works such as "Metamorphoses".

Norse and Germanic Mythology: The Norse sagas and Germanic folklore also feature tales of men who could transform into wolves, such as the Viking berserkers who were believed to be able to take on the powers of animals, including wolves, during battle. The "Volsunga Saga" tells of men who wore enchanted wolf pelts and transformed into wolves.

Medieval Europe: In medieval Europe, werewolves were often linked with witchcraft and the devil. Many believed that witches could transform into wolves or other animals, and there were numerous werewolf trials in places like France and Germany, much like the witch trials. The fear of werewolves was often tied to religious and superstitious beliefs about the devil's influence over humans.

Indigenous Cultures: Indigenous peoples in North America, such as the Navajo, have legends about shape-shifters, often referred to as skinwalkers, who could transform into animals, including wolves.

How Long Have Werewolves Been Around?

Werewolf myths and legends date back to at least the ancient world, more than 2,000 years ago, if not further. The idea of humans transforming into wolves, either voluntarily or through a curse, has been a common theme across various cultures. Throughout history, werewolves have appeared in art, literature, and oral traditions.

The Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100 BCE) – One of the earliest known references to lycanthropy. In this Sumerian epic, the goddess Ishtar turns a former lover into a wolf.

"The Satyricon" by Petronius (1st century CE) – A Roman work of fiction that includes a passage where a man transforms into a wolf, making it one of the oldest literary depictions of a werewolf.

"The Metamorphoses" by Ovid (8 CE) – This Latin narrative poem contains the story of Lycaon, a man transformed into a wolf by Zeus, one of the earliest and most influential werewolf myths.

"Bisclavret" by Marie de France (12th century) – A French medieval romance about a knight who turns into a wolf. This tale is an early example of sympathetic werewolf stories.

"The Book of Were-Wolves" by Sabine Baring-Gould (1865) – One of the first comprehensive studies on werewolves, combining folklore, history, and mythology about lycanthropy.

"Wagner the Wehr-Wolf" by George W.M. Reynolds (1846-1847) – A serialized Gothic novel that tells the story of a man cursed to become a wolf.

"The Were-Wolf" by Clemence Housman (1896) – A short novel about a mysterious and seductive woman who transforms into a werewolf, blending Gothic horror with themes of gender and power.

"The Phantom Ship" by Captain Frederick Marryat (1839) – While the main focus is on a haunted ship, there is a notable episode involving a werewolf.

"The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Captain Frederick Marryat (1839) – A short werewolf story often included in collections of Gothic horror, with a sinister white wolf terrorizing a family.

"The Werewolf of Paris" by Guy Endore (1933) – A key influence on later werewolf films, this novel explores a man’s transformation into a werewolf in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.

Films:

"The Werewolf" (1913) – A silent short film believed to be the first werewolf movie ever made. It was based on a short story by Henry Beaugrand called "The Werewolves", about Native American shape-shifting legends. Unfortunately, the film is considered lost.

"Le Loup-garou" (1923) – A French silent film with a werewolf theme, directed by Pierre Bressol.

"Wolf Blood" (1925) – Another silent film, this one blending early horror with elements of the frontier. It follows a man who believes he is becoming a wolf after receiving a blood transfusion from a wolf.

"Werewolf of London" (1935) – The first full-length werewolf film from Universal Studios, preceding "The Wolfman" (1941). It tells the story of a botanist who is bitten by a werewolf while on an expedition and transforms into a creature after returning to London.

[the-fae-folk]

Hello. I'm writing a story and I'd like to base my magic system on that of the fae's magic? Do you know how their magic works? The rules of their magic? I've heard of things like prices and contracts, but I'd love to know more. Thank you for helping. I love your blog.

In a desperate attempt to prevent this answer from getting far out of hand, I'll try to limit myself to something more practical you can use. However it is important that you understand that many magical abilities, events, and things had their roots in various ancient cultural practices, beliefs, and cultural needs or desires. As these tales were passed down orally they were changed with each successive generation, adapted for the huge cultural changes such as the rise of Christianity or for war and famine or political exploitation. The transition from Folktales (mostly oral storytelling) to the later Fairy Tales (largely dominated by literary storytelling) is an important factor in which kinds of stories are still remembered and can be studied today.

So depending on what historical period, country or locale, and cultural group you're looking at, you could have entirely different sets of faeries who had vastly different kinds of powers and rules. And those abilities and limitations were often the remains of older cultures from whom the stories had been passed down from or who had influenced it along the way, or they were a kind of wish fulfillment of basic needs and desires for a generally non-literate agrarian people, as well as an expression of their values and beliefs.

Let's look at your question. Okay, you want to know how the magic itself works, the rules. Well first let's see if we can get a very brief idea of what magic is. While it would be the work of several books to try and define an etymology and history of magic in all the different cultures connected to Faerie Folklore over the centuries, we can pick out some ideas that were of particular influence.

There are several types of magic anthropology suggests for us. These being: Sympathetic Magic, Divination, and Contagious Magic.

Sympathetic Magic is based on the principle of "Like produces like". For instance if something is to happen to an image of someone, it shall also happen to the actual person.

Contagious Magic is based on the principle that if a thing was once connected to or in contact with something else it can still influence it even when they are apart. Believers would hide their fallen teeth, nails, hair trimmings, clothes, or feces from what they believed were malevolent supernatural forces or practitioners of magic.

Divination, which you may be more familiar with, is the procedures and ways in which knowledge of a certain event or of some future event are determined.

But these terms don't really offer us a very clear idea of what's going on with this idea of magic. Alternatively we can think about the different methods in which people would practice magic. Spoken words, writing, or symbols of power were thought to have magic in a number of different cultures. While in animistic beliefs even ordinary items could take on magical attributes as well as a spirit.

The sources of power for this magic were varied. Anything from nature, deceased humans reincarnated and willing to intercede, and sacred or secret knowledge of the world and realities it hides from common knowledge.

In medieval France and Britain there was an idea where women were magical because they could create new life and give birth to it, the act of creating something itself being the magical ability they possessed. So too were other acts of creative work such as cooking, mathematics, and various types of craftsmanship viewed as a kind of magic. It's unlikely that these women, scholars, and craftsmen were viewed as magical practitioners, but the idea of the work itself being a kind of hidden magical knowledge made it into the oral and later literary storytelling and remains there to this day.

Even in contemporary fantasy there are remnants of this idea that crafting itself is a kind of magical knowledge. Think of all the items in literature that are magical. Cloaks, wands, food, weapons. Even everyday items such as a looking glass can become a magic mirror, or a pair of shoes the enchanted seven league boots.

A great deal of Faerie magic in folklore seems to have been a mixed kind, with different types of magic for different situations or peoples. For instance the story of Rumpelstiltskin shows a heavy emphasis on the magic supposed to be inherent in finding the True Name of a thing and the apparent delight in deals and agreements, especially exploitative ones. Other stories present us with Faeries and magical beings who rely on rituals of certain words or events that must take place for a magic to be effective, items combined or crafted in a specific way with specific ingredients or words of power to make charms, and a large variety of abilities that suspiciously have a great deal in common with medicinal practices.

There is, of course, the question of Glamour. Initially a kind of illusion magic, such as in the Ballad of Tam Lin where the titular Tam Lin was "transformed" into a number of frightening shapes in order to try and get his lover, Janet, to let go. It can also be used to disguise the faerie themself, or make a cave appear to be a beautiful palace, or a pile of leaves into a grand feast.

Strangely, there are also many folktales that describe Faeries as having actual powers of transformation, being able to shift their size and form, and the limitations differed from tale to tale. Several variants deal with the contradiction of Faeries who are somehow both intangible and tangible at the same time, or only tangible in certain conditions.

Wings are common in Victorian Art of faeries, but in older stories there are many depictions of Faerie beings who can simply fly without them.

Folklore studies doesn't really make it clear what abilities the Faeries were supposed to have or how those powers worked, and this problem is only muddled further by the lack of surviving materials on these cultures, and the slow influence of changing generations and storytelling that time has upon our existing texts and materials. What you mention, however, is the prices and contracts. The idea of tricksters who will wheedle and bargain and use clever words to get what they want is as old as myth itself, and throughout the history of folklore and fairy tale there are countless trickster characters. Though the Faerie are drawn from multiple different sources they are known in more than one place as having a penchant for trickery or malicious behavior to go with their supernatural abilities and powers. Despite looking, I haven't been able to pin down any particular point in which they began to be associated with deliberately ill intended contracts, it's certainly easy to see that throughout the medieval period and onward the Fae definitely had a strong connection to the idea of bargains and deals, often being incredibly upset (not to mention exceedingly dangerous to all around them) should that contract be broken by the human party usually involved. In many stories the human's ill fortune is caused by them agreeing to things they thought they wanted, but turned out not to be happy with when they got it, or found that they weren't prepared for the true scope of the price they agreed to when they made the deal. Since the Fae do not care whether the human likes the deal as long as it is upheld as agreed, they can understandably be very annoyed when a human breaks the agreement and still thinks themself entitled to the treasures and pleasures they got from said deal.

In contemporary fantasy we might be able to guess that the connection between Faeries and their supposed interest in the true names of things, as well as their often mischievous or maleficent nature, somehow was combined with this tendency in fairy tales to make deals and bargains with mortals. It's conjecture on my part, but it would definitely explain some of the trends in the depictions of faeries in modern literature. It's not a huge stretch to imagine that over time magic in literature came to be directly involved in those deals as well, not just enforced by a deal-loving being with magic, but being enforced by the nature of the magic itself.

[dailyanarchistposts]

I.5.1 What are participatory communities?

A key concept in anarchist thought is that of the participatory community. Traditionally, these participatory communities are called communes in anarchist theory (“The basic social and economic cell of the anarchist society is the free, independent commune” [A. Grachev, quoted by Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, p. 64]).

The reason for the use of the term commune is due to anarchism’s roots in France where it refers to the lowest level of administrative division in the Republic. In France, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants (hence the Paris Commune of 1871); a town of 10,000; or just a 10-person hamlet. It appeared in the 12th century from Medieval Latin communia, which means a gathering of people sharing a common life (from Latin communis, things held in common). Proudhon used the term to describe the social units of a non-statist society and subsequent anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin followed his lead. As the term “commune”, since the 1960s, often refers to “intentional communities” where people drop out of society and form their own counter-cultural groups and living spaces we have, in order to avoid confusion, decided to use “participatory community” as well (anarchists have also used other terms, including “free municipality”).

These community organisations are seen as the way people participate in the decisions that affect them and their neighbourhoods, regions and, ultimately, planet. These are the means for transforming our social environment from one disfigured by economic and political power and its needs to one fit for human beings to life and flourish in. The creation of a network of participatory communities (“communes”) based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in grassroots neighbourhood assemblies is the means to that end. As we argued in section I.2.3 such assemblies will be born in social struggle and so reflect the needs of the struggle and those within it so our comments here must be considered as generalisations of the salient features of such communities and not blue-prints.

Within anarchist thought, there are two main conceptions of the free commune. One vision is based on workplace delegates, the other on neighbourhood assemblies. We will sketch each in turn.

The first type of participatory community (in which “the federative Alliance of all working men’s associations … will constitute the commune”) is most associated with Bakunin. He argued that the “future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards, by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their unions, then in communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation, international and universal.” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170 and p. 206] This vision was stressed by later anarchist thinkers. For example, Spanish anarchist Issac Puente thought that in towns and cities “the part of the free municipality is played by local federation … Ultimate sovereignty in the local federation of industrial unions lies with the general assembly of all local producers.” [Libertarian Communism, p. 27] The Russian anarchist G. P. Maximoff saw the “communal confederation” as being “constituted by thousands of freely acting labour organisations.” [The Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 43]

This vision of the commune was created during many later revolutions (such as in Russia in 1905 and 1917 as well as Hungary in 1956). Being based on workplaces, this form of commune has the advantage of being based on groups of people who are naturally associated during most of the day (Bakunin considered workplace bodies as “the natural organisation of the masses” as they were “based on the various types of work” which “define their actual day-to-day life” [The Basic Bakunin, p. 139]). This would facilitate the organisation of assemblies, discussion on social, economic and political issues and the mandating and recalling of delegates. Moreover, it combines political and economic power in one organisation, so ensuring that the working class actually manages society.

Other anarchists counterpoise neighbourhood assemblies to workers’ councils. These assemblies will be general meetings open to all citizens in every neighbourhood, town, and village, and will be the source of public policy for all levels of confederal co-ordination. Such “town meetings” will bring people directly into the political process and give them an equal voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Such anarchists point to the experience of the French Revolution of 1789 and the “sections” of the Paris Commune as the key example of “a people governing itself directly — when possible — without intermediaries, without masters.” It is argued, based on this experience, that “the principles of anarchism … dated from 1789, and that they had their origin, not in theoretical speculations, but in the deeds of the Great French Revolution.” [Peter Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 210 and p. 204] Anarchists also point to the clubs created during the 1848 Revolution in France and in the Paris Commune of 1871 not to mention the community assemblies created in Argentina during the revolt against neo-liberalism at the start of the 21st century.

Critics of workers’ councils point out that not all people work in traditional workplaces (many are parents who look after children, for example). By basing the commune around the workplace, such people are automatically excluded. Moreover, in most modern cities many people do not live near where they work. It would mean that local affairs could not be effectively discussed in a system of workers’ councils as many who take part in the debate are unaffected by the decisions reached. In addition, some anarchists argue that workplace based systems automatically generate “special interests” and so exclude community issues. Only community assemblies can “transcend the traditional special interests of work, workplace, status, and property relations, and create a general interest based on shared community problems.” [Murray Bookchin, From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 254]

However, such communities assemblies can only be valid if they can be organised rapidly in order to make decisions and to mandate and recall delegates. In the capitalist city, many people work far from where they live and so such meetings have to be called for after work or at weekends (thus the key need is to reduce the working day/week and to communalise industry). For this reason, many anarchists continue to support the workers’ council vision of the commune, complemented by community assemblies for those who live in an area but do not work in a traditional workplace (e.g. parents bringing up small children, the old, the sick and so on). It should be noted that this is something which the supporters of workers’ councils have noticed and some argue for councils which are delegates from both the inhabitants and the enterprises of an area.

These positions are not hard and fast divisions, far from it. Puente, for example, thought that in the countryside the dominant commune would be “all the residents of a village or hamlet meeting in an assembly (council) with full powers to administer local affairs.” [Op. Cit., p. 25] Kropotkin supported the soviets of the Russian Revolution, arguing that the “idea of soviets … of councils of workers and peasants … controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great idea. All the more so, since it necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who take part in the production of natural wealth by their own efforts.” [Anarchism, p. 254]

Which method, workers’ councils or community assemblies, will be used in a given community will depend on local conditions, needs and aspirations and it is useless to draw hard and fast rules. It is likely that some sort of combination of the two approaches will be used, with workers’ councils being complemented by community assemblies until such time as a reduced working week and decentralisation of urban centres make purely community assemblies the more realistic option. It is likely that in a fully libertarian society, community assemblies will be the dominant communal organisation but in the period immediately after a revolution this may not be immediately possible. Objective conditions, rather than predictions, will be the deciding factor. Under capitalism, anarchists pursue both forms of organisation, arguing for community and industrial unionism in the class struggle (see sections J.5.1 and J.5.2).

Regardless of the exact make up of the commune, it has certain key features. It would be free a association, based upon the self-assumed obligation of those who join them. In free association, participation is essential simply because it is the only means by which individuals can collectively govern themselves (and unless they govern themselves, someone else will). “As a unique individual,” Stirner argued, “you can assert yourself alone in association, because the association does not own you, because you are one who owns it or who turns it to your own advantage.” The rules governing the association are determined by the associated and can be changed by them (and so a vast improvement over “love it or leave”) as are the policies the association follows. Thus, the association “does not impose itself as a spiritual power superior to my spirit. I have no wish to become a slave to my maxims, but would rather subject them to my ongoing criticism.” [Max Stirner, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 17]

Thus participatory communities are freely joined and self-managed by their members with no division between order givers and order takers as exists within the state. Rather the associated govern themselves and while the assembled people collectively decide the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed (see section A.2.11 for more details). As can be seen, a participatory commune is new form of social life, radically different from the state as it is decentralised, self-governing and based upon individual autonomy and free agreement. Thus Kropotkin:

“The representative system was organised by the bourgeoisie to ensure their domination, and it will disappear with them. For the new economic phase that is about to begin we must seek a new form of political organisation, based on a principle quite different from that of representation. The logic of events imposes it.” [Words of a Rebel, p. 125]

This “new form of political organisation has to be worked out the moment that socialistic principles shall enter our life. And it is self-evident that this new form will have to be more popular, more decentralised, and nearer to the folk-mote self-government than representative government can ever be.” Kropotkin, like all anarchists, considered the idea that socialism could be created by taking over the current state or creating a new one as doomed to failure. Instead, he recognised that socialism would only be built using new organisations that reflect the spirit of socialism (such as freedom, self-government and so on). He, like Proudhon and Bakunin before him, therefore argued that ”[t]his was the form that the social revolution must take — the independent commune… [whose] inhabitants have decided that they will communalise the consumption of commodities, their exchange and their production.” [Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 184 and p. 163]

In a nutshell, a participatory community is a free association, based upon the mass assembly of people who live in a common area, the means by which they make the decisions that affect them, their communities, bio-regions and the planet. Their essential task is to provide a forum for raising public issues and deciding upon them. Moreover, these assemblies will be a key way of generating a community (and community spirit) and building and enriching social relationships between individuals and, equally important, of developing and enriching individuals by the very process of participation in communal affairs. By discussing, thinking and listening to others, individuals develop their own abilities and powers while at the same time managing their own affairs, so ensuring that no one else does (i.e. they govern themselves and are no longer governed from above by others). As Kropotkin argued, self-management has an educational effect on those who practice it:

“The ‘permanence’ of the general assemblies of the sections — that is, the possibility of calling the general assembly whenever it was wanted by the members of the section and of discussing everything in the general assembly… will educate every citizen politically… The section in permanence — the forum always open — is the only way … to assure an honest and intelligent administration.” [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 210–1]

As well as integrating the social life of a community and encouraging the political and social development of its members, these free communes will also be integrated into the local ecology. Humanity would life in harmony with nature as well as with itself — as discussed in section E.2, these would be eco-communities part of their local eco-systems with a balanced mix of agriculture and industry (as described by Kropotkin in his classic work Fields, Factories and Workshops). Thus a free commune would aim to integrate the individual into social and communal life, rural and urban life into a balanced whole and human life into the wider ecology. In this way the free commune would make human habitation fully ecological, ending the sharp and needless (and dehumanising and de-individualising) division of human life from the rest of the planet. The commune will be a key means of the expressing diversity within humanity and the planet as well as improving the quality of life in society:

“The Commune … will be entirely devoted to improving the communal life of the locality. Making their requests to the appropriate Syndicates, Builders’, Public Health, Transport or Power, the inhabitants of each Commune will be able to gain all reasonable living amenities, town planning, parks, play-grounds, trees in the street, clinics, museums and art galleries. Giving, like the medieval city assembly, an opportunity for any interested person to take part in, and influence, his town’s affairs and appearance, the Commune will be a very different body from the borough council … “In ancient and medieval times cities and villages expressed the different characters of different localities and their inhabitants. In redstone, Portland or granite, in plaster or brick, in pitch of roof, arrangements of related buildings or patterns of slate and thatch each locality added to the interests of travellers … each expressed itself in castle, home or cathedral. “How different is the dull, drab, or flashy ostentatious monotony of modern England. Each town is the same. The same Woolworth’s, Odeon Cinemas, and multiple shops, the same ‘council houses’ or ‘semi-detached villas’ … North, South, East or West, what’s the difference, where is the change? “With the Commune the ugliness and monotony of present town and country life will be swept away, and each locality and region, each person will be able to express the joy of living, by living together.” [Tom Brown, Syndicalism, p. 59]

The size of the neighbourhood assemblies will vary, but it will probably fluctuate around some ideal size, discoverable in practice, that will provide a viable scale of face-to-face interaction and allow for both a variety of personal contacts. This suggests that any town or city would itself be a confederation of assemblies — as was, of course, practised very effectively in Paris during the Great French Revolution.

Such assemblies would meet regularly, at the very least monthly (probably more often, particularly during periods which require fast and frequent decision making, like a revolution) and deal with a variety of issues. In the words of the CNT’s resolution on libertarian communism:

“the foundation of this administration will be the commune. These communes are to be autonomous and will be federated at regional and national levels to achieve their general goals. The right to autonomy does not preclude the duty to implement agreements regarding collective benefits … [A] commune without any voluntary restrictions will undertake to adhere to whatever general norms may be agreed by majority vote after free debate … the commune is to be autonomous and confederated with the other communes … the commune will have the duty to concern itself with whatever may be of interest to the individual. “It will have to oversee organising, running and beautification of the settlement. It will see that its inhabitants are housed and that items and products be made available to them by the producers’ unions or associations. “Similarly, it is to concern itself with hygiene, the keeping of communal statistics and with collective requirements such as education, health services and with the maintenance and improvement of local means of communication. “It will orchestrate relations with other communes and will take care to stimulate all artistic and cultural pursuits. “So that this mission may be properly fulfilled, a communal council is to be appointed … None of these posts will carry any executive or bureaucratic powers … [its members] will perform their role as producers coming together in session at the close of the day’s work to discuss the detailed items which may not require the endorsement of communal assemblies. “Assemblies are to be summoned as often as required by communal interests, upon the request of the communal council or according to the wishes of the inhabitants of each commune … The inhabitants of a commune are to debate among themselves their internal problems.” [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 106–7]

Thus the communal assembly discusses that which affects the community and those within it. As these local community associations will be members of larger communal bodies, the communal assembly will also discuss issues which affect wider areas, as indicated, and mandate their delegates to discuss them at confederation assemblies. This system, we must note, was applied with great success during numerous revolutions (see section J.5.4) and so cannot be dismissed as wishful thinking.

However, of course, the actual framework of a free society will be worked out in practice. As Bakunin correctly argued, society “can, and must, organise itself in a different fashion [than what came before], but not from top to bottom and according to an ideal plan” [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 205] What does seem likely is that confederations of communes will be required. We turn to this in the next section.

[mysticstarlightduck]

Author Ask Tag

Kindly tagged by @writernopal 💕

1. What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

The Last Wrath's main message, throughout many of the character arcs, is that one must not lose hope, even through the darkest times, and that to find that light in the dark, one has to take action, instead of waiting for a savior that may never come.

It also includes messages of acceptance and diversity (in the sense of the need for respect and tolerance for a harmonious society), learning from the past but not letting it define the future, and the need to take a stand for what you believe in. The value of freedom. Change, and its presence in all beings and things, is also an important theme.

TLW also shows how cruelty and injustice (of all kinds) can shape not only a world but the people within it.

On another note, The Last Wrath is also a story that criticizes how crooked people with enough power act like they are above others, and how prejudice can be one of the greatest evils a society can harbor. It criticizes oppression and corrupt systems, as well as criticizes against people who think they can take whatever they want because they can (be it in the more direct sense, like a conquest, or something more subtle but just as dangerous)

And it shows how there is still good even if it is hidden by the existence of great evil, and that the only way to find freedom, is to believe and accept yourself, and actively seek it - even if it may seem impossible at first, there is a brighter future ahead.

As for why I chose these themes, while most of them came naturally to the plot, it is also - in some ways - the story themes that I would've liked to read in the past and feel the message of a striving for a brighter future despite the odds, can be important to a lot of people out there too.

2. What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

The Last Wrath takes a lot of inspiration from past civilizations that existed during the Ancient Times and Medieval Ages. I often find myself reading history books, researching historical articles, or even watching videos with random curiosities about the past, and all of those things eventually serve as a basis from which I built the fully fictional world that is the continent of Agrannor.

While my inspirations were varied the few ancient and medieval cultures that immediately come to mind when I think about some specific kingdoms/locations in Agrannor are: Ancient Romans, Ancient Greece, Vikings, the Mongols, Ancient Egypt, Celtic, Feudal Europe (especially England, France and Germany), Mediterranean, Ancient Middle East, Phoenicians, etc.

Mythology, lore, and folk/fairy tales are also great sources of inspiration for me, especially when it comes to the creation of magical beasts and creatures with a twist.

I also find myself inspired by watching different pieces of media, such as good movies or series, that take place in medieval fantasy settings. Something about it just gets me in the mood to write!

Listening to music, looking for aesthetics on Pinterest, daydreaming about my WIPs while listening to vibing songs - all of this helps get me inspired too!

3. What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, and help readers grow as a person?

Well, aside from the overall goal of "prevent/stop the War of Prophecy from destroying the world" and "defeat the Secret Court and Emperor Aerich", I guess that all of my Main Characters are somehow looking for a missing piece of themselves (not in a literal sense lol, but in the metaphorical sense) and to finally find the place where they belong in the world, their "purpose" so to speak. Of course, each of the protagonists has unique goals and wants, but even those boil down to a variation of these.

As for what I am trying to achieve with them as a writer: I am trying to write a compelling story about unique individuals facing the odds, not because they want to, but because it is the right thing to do. I want to explore some aspects of the human condition through these characters, and how their harsh world shapes each individual in unique ways. How, at the end of the day, they're just people trying to do their best with what chance was given to them, even though they make mistakes and fail sometimes. I want to show how "courage is not the absence of fear, but taking action despite of it. " and that one doesn't have to be born a perfect hero to stand up for what is right or to protect those they love.

Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, and help readers grow as a person? Yes, I do. At least I hope so, lol. But mostly, I want to inspire readers to question the world around them, and to consider looking at things through a different perspective rather than to become blindsided. I hope to show how you can choose your future and define your destiny, even if it is not an easy road for everyone. To embrace differences and let them help you - and the world around you - grow for the better. To consider that to try is the best thing anyone can do at any given moment, and that it is a thousand times better to try - even if there is a risk of failure - than to never try at all.

4. How many chapters is your story going to have?

While I have the story outlined and plotted, and know how it begins, develops, and ends, I don't know the exact amount of chapters it'll have. As many as it takes to write a well-rounded but concise story, I guess (:

5. Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Original! I plan to publish The Last Wrath as an actual novel, one day, and I'm likely to indie publish when the time comes.

6. When and why did you start writing?

I started writing short stories when I was a little kid. I just loved creating stories, worlds, and characters, and creating wonderful things that only existed in my imagination! Sometime later I decided to try and write my first "book" on my dad's computer, which was already sort of medieval fantasy - which had always been my favorite genre, and still is. And this desire to write stayed with me ever since, and now, I actually write real novels and am able to bring the worlds in my imagination to my creations.

7. Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers on Tumblr do you follow?

Write the story you want to write, because it deserves to be out in the world, even if you currently doubt yourself, and only you - its author - can bring that story to fruition the way it was meant to be written, and know that you deserve to write whatever the heck you want. For yourself, to have fun doing it. Know that every word on a page, even if it is just a sucky first draft, is a step towards perfecting your craft, and that gentle practice and patience beats stubborn perfectionism (wanting things to come out perfect in the first try), any day.

Tagging (gently) @conkers-theficwriter, @digital-chance, @lyutenw, @exquisitecrow, @clairelsonao3, @cabbojage, @rickie-the-storyteller, @your-absent-father, @anoelleart, @jasperygrace

[cleonard-ricsummerinenglandblog]

Warwick Castle - A wonderland of medieval merriment on the outside, and a monument of empire on the inside

I think for many, the UK is synonymous with colonization and imperialism. Britain conquered ¼ of the planet, and dominated global politics during the 19th century. To this day, English/British culture is seen as standard in various nations across the planet (the three piece suit, the English language, handshakes as greetings). The ascendance of the United States, a former British settler colony has certainly aided in the continued influence of “British culture” over the world. 

But empires and Great Britain have a history stretching back to Antiquity. When the vast Roman Empire invaded and subjected the Britons, forming the province of Britannia. And again when the Norse came, and settling the Danelaw or making England part of their empires (most notably the “North Sea Empire” under Cnut the Great), then the Normans and their conquest of the Kingdom, and subsequent French kings of England, and the so-called Angevin Empire. England’s conquests of Wales and Ireland, and finally the formation of the UK out of the personal union between England and Scotland. It’s been a long list of empires that rule in England, or Britain. And that history, especially the later parts of it, are not fun things to talk about, and can ignite harsh feelings in people…

When we visited Warwick Castle, it was easy to forget all the horrors. The place if lively, beautiful, and filled with things to to, from the hedge maze, climbing the towers (three cheers for Dr. Holl for finally getting to the top of the main tower after years of attempts), seeing the beautiful peacocks, visiting the food stalls, and little merchandise and toy shops, the joust event, the archery range (which had the hottest, most adorable man running it (Christopher if you see this, marry me :3c jk, unless…)) There’s just a lot to do and see and have fun with.

But as they day went on, I decided to go inside the main house. And there, I saw a different part of the castle. The outside is so fun, it’s like a theme park. The inside is more like a museum, and walking through its two halves, I was struck by a thought. I saw the gold portraits, and the fine silks and tapestries, and the dresses, and suits of armor, and the wax models lounging on sofas and I had a thought.

One of the models was a young Winston Churchill, whose tenure as PM saw a devastating famine in Bengal that killed millions.

What power, what wealth, these people must have had, to live here. How many have died because of them? How many lives have the owners of this castle throughout the centuries sent to their deaths? And for what?

The Wars of the Roses is a dramatic part of history, and the writings of William Shakespeare have helped turn it into such a story. But that story centers upon the feuding kings and dukes. And the things they fight about are just accepted as the way of things. England and her people were ruined, slaughtered by people squabbling over the question of who gets to own them. All of that happened right after the Hundred Years War, which saw England’s French kings fight for their supposed right to own France, because one Kingdom wasn’t enough for their greedy hearts. All these combatants were themselves descended from William of Normandy, who conquered England, toppled its native institutions, relegated English to a peasant language, and when people got agitated, who committed genocide to consolidate his rule. All because he thought he had a right to England and its people, as though they were an object to be owned. 

Warwick Castle got its start with Æthelflæd of Mercia, as an Anglo-Saxon burh to defend against viking attacks, when England was still a fledgling nation, but the Normans came and made it a fortress, to ‘defend’ their rule. Just like the Kingdom of England would later do in Wales, and Ireland, just like the United Kingdom would do in America and India… follow the fortresses if you wanna follow the tide of Empire. 

The way I see it, the Norman conquest turned England into an engine of empire, greased with the blood of the English people, and those it conquered alongside them. And that engine became the United Kingdom, and made an empire that spanned the globe. But the only real beneficiaries have been the same ones who caused the Wars of the Roses, the Hundred Years War, the Harrying of the North… the same kind of people that drafted Americans into the Vietnam War, who pushed Native Americans into pitiful reservations that they’ve starved of resources, who enslaved Africans for the profit of the cotton and tobacco trades. The rich and powerful and wealthy. Those who rule us. How cruel of a world it is, that we are ruled by people who see us as disposable because in their warped little heads, we are. 

Fun fact about England's medieval standard, it's a quartering of France and England's CoAs, and France, in quadrants 1 and 4, was given the place of higher importance, because England's kings considered themselves French, and that France was more important.

[historyreimagined24]

King John: The Controversial Monarch of Medieval England

King John, often overshadowed by his more celebrated predecessors and successors, remains one of the most controversial figures in English history. Ascending to the throne in 1199 after the death of his brother, Richard the Lionheart, John faced immense challenges during his reign, leaving a complex legacy that continues to intrigue historians and storytellers alike.

One of the defining moments of King John's reign was the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. Faced with mounting pressure from rebellious barons unhappy with his arbitrary rule and heavy taxation, John reluctantly agreed to the terms laid out in the Magna Carta, which limited the power of the monarchy and established certain legal rights for free men. While the Magna Carta would later be reissued and revised by subsequent monarchs, its significance as a symbol of limited government and the rule of law cannot be overstated.

However, King John's reign was marked by more than just his conflict with the barons. His foreign policy decisions, particularly his loss of territories in France, earned him the contempt of many of his subjects. John's military defeats, combined with his exorbitant taxation to fund his campaigns, contributed to widespread discontent and rebellion among the nobility and commoners alike.

John's personal life also added to his notoriety. His marriage to Isabella of Angoulême sparked tensions with the French crown and led to further conflict. Additionally, his reputation for cruelty and treachery, exemplified by his alleged role in the murder of his nephew Arthur of Brittany, fueled rumors and legends that portrayed him as a villainous monarch.

Despite his flaws and failures, King John's reign also saw significant administrative developments within the English monarchy. He established a system of royal justices to enforce the law throughout the kingdom, laying the groundwork for the centralized legal system that would develop in later centuries. John's efforts to standardize weights and measures and improve royal finances were also noteworthy achievements that contributed to the stability of the realm.

In conclusion, King John's reign was a turbulent period in English history, marked by conflict, controversy, and complexity. While his legacy is still debated by historians, his reign undeniably left an indelible mark on the development of English law, governance, and culture. Whether viewed as a villain or a victim of circumstances, King John remains a fascinating figure whose story continues to captivate our imaginations.

[factcheckandchill]

Historical thread: from Manifest Destiny to today's global strife.

James Monroe gave a State of the Union address on December 2nd, 1823. Buried within it, was a warning to the powers of Europe; that any further expansion in the Americas might be perceived as an act of hostility.

By the late 19th century, the Monroe Doctrine combined with the rise of the concept of Manifest Destiny, gave the perfect combination for American expansion westward towards, and into the Pacific.

Monroe was the last "founding father" to serve as president. He attended the College of William and Mary, fought in the Continental Army, and practiced law in Virginia. He was an anti-federalist - a group involved in ratifying the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, he served as minister to France from 1794 to 1796. He was also, partly responsible for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

America started as groups of various European settlements whose affluent organized to create an independent, monarch-free empire. A monarchy of the rich with an illusion of public equality.

This was at a time when Europe was grappling with what powers their monarchs should have.

They originated as feudal systems in medieval times in Europe that developed from the mass enslavement of the poor in proto-capitalist societies.

The economic systems we live under today, if you live in the Western world, or a place under Western spheres of influence, derive from those systems.

In the 19th century, the Europeans and Americans could not allow for systems that existed outside capitalist control. The idea that people did not serve a state power, a monarch, or the various forms of landlords/capital owners, was unsettling and a threat to their legitimacy.

During colonial times, Guatemala was an administrative center in the Central American region. Today, it remains a religious center. Monroe-ism had a hand in eradicating most European control in that region. And instead imposing U.S. influence.

The influence is most pronounced in the Panama region, where the dollar is the current currency.

While the impact of Spanish, Portuguese, and other European conquest in Central and South America is still felt today, the current hand of the local conquistador, the U.S.A., is most today.

For the past 200 years, U.S. intervention in Latin America has become second nature. If a government in that region does something that the U.S. does not like, then that is grounds for a U.S.-backed coup, destabilization of government and society, and re-appointment of more U.S. corporate interest-friendly persons in the place of anyone the U.S. does not like. This started to translate elsewhere after Wilson took power. Like in the Koreas, Iraq (where the U.S. supported Saddam until they didn't) Israel, the GCC, Iran, heck even the Soviet Union and post-Soviet states - namely Yugoslavia.

Moral consistency be damned, you have to protect your foreign interests and ensure access to other people's natural resources! Right?

Nowadays, the times of Monroe and other early presidents are incredibly romanticized by U.S. Americans. Forgetting his actions towards Native Americans, and his presiding over the trail of tears.

This is not unlike the modern-day treatment of occupied indigenous populations elsewhere. But hey, white culture is better than any other, right? (Wrong, it isn't, it never was, it never will be.)

Looking at Palestine today, you can see where this amalgamation of Monroe-ism, Wilsonianism, post-modern imperialism and colonialism collide. And it all goes down to this white supremacist belief that their culture and way of life is best, which is infantilistic at best and narcissistic at worst.

Winston Churchill himself said of the colonization of Palestine;

"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, though he may have lain there for a very long time I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race or at any rate a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, 'American continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here'. They had not the right, nor had they the power."

Decades after the Monroe Doctrine State of the Union, Theodore Roosevelt used the Monroe Doctrine as a way to legitimize America's "international police power" around the world. And if we ask KRS-One about the police, they are an extension of the upkeep of white supremacy in the United States. According to Roosevelt, the Monroe Doctrine was a way for the U.S. to expand their overseer officers across the globe.

Roosevelt's antics in Venezuela, reflect the ideals of today's American government. Telling Henry Cabot Lodge, "I rather hope the fight will come soon. The clamor of the peace faction has convinced me that this country needs a war."

Today, Joe Biden, like most all presidents before, is keeping up this power. Protecting their interests everywhere at the expense of everyone else. As we see in the carte blanche given to Israel by its imperial benefactors to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whomever it wants. Including committing genocide, enacting apartheid, controlling the world's largest concentration camp, and arresting 100s of children annually - without charge or judicial oversight - in military prisons, in a country that has become a safe haven for pedophiles according to its own media, amongst incalculable and unimaginable atrocities occurring daily against Palestinians across the territories.

This brings us to China and the Soviet Union, both of these nations are/were economic rivals of the U.S. The former two gaining power on the global stage is not good news for U.S. global control, as they provide alternatives to anything the U.S. can do, and it would be a great danger to U.S. and European satellite stateless, like Israel.

Cuba, being the antithesis of an American satellite state, remains a thorn in the side of U.S. foreign policy. A state, in its own 'sphere of influence', that isn't attached to the U.S. economically and socially? Worse, economically tied to the Soviets? What?!?!

Hell, the Monroe Doctrine was at the root of J.F. Kennedy's response during the 'Cuban Missile Crisis'.

And before you start to list the 'atrocities' of the Cuban state, I wish to redirect you to the concept of moral consistency! Look it up.

This is a catch-22 for both the U.S. and Israel. They both have internal issues that are bringing their power down on the global stage, and American support of Israel brings its power and influence down even further. Its power going down brings Israeli support down.

The final goal of anti-Monroe-vian visionaries should be to take away the veto powers of all who hold them on the UNSC, taking away any carte blanche powers that any state can hold, and the demand of moral consistency from all.

The Monroe Doctrine started out as a way to prevent European involvement in the Americas to ensure U.S. American economic influence in the Western Hemisphere. Later on, expanding that hemisphere to wherever natural resources and economic pathways may lay.

This motivated Europe to expedite the process of expanding east and south. A process that has been in the works, but it definitely allowed for more capability, time, and focus to be applied there than in the potential of expanding into the western hemisphere.

In today's world, Europe's colonial modus operandi is to settle its people elsewhere. While the U.S. modus is imposing a military and cultural presence that sought to command people's loyalties to what it saw as the moral high ground. Manifesting what once was titled the "white man's burden" - or in today's social power structure the "western-capitalist man's burden."

[histoireettralala]

"A fusion of two cultures"

Geography does not always accurately describe a queen as it does a king, who was defined by the subjects he ruled (Alfred the Great was king of the English) or his realms (Edward II was king of England who inherited a realm from his father). Kings were rooted in a place, their language and cultural traditions were those of their ancestors, their royal revenues stemming from the agriculture and commerce of the lands they inherited. Medieval kings were peripatetic; they moved around to govern far-flung regions of their realm or to conquer another piece of land, but their title was stable. In short, they were synonymous with their realms. Queens, on the other hand, except for a small minority of exceptions, did not inherit a realm from their father. Instead, they moved from the realm of their birth to marry and live with a king. This move might be just a short distance, involving little more than a day's journey- for example, from Kent to Westminster. Or the distance could be considerably greater, like the trip that Anna Agnesa Yaroslavna, the Grand Duchess of Kiev, made when she moved to Paris to marry Henri I, king of France, in 1051. She was queen of the French, but not a French queen. Unlike her husband, a foreign queen's personal and familial identity was a fusion of two cultures: she left her family, embraced a new one, adapted to a new culture and learned what was expected of her. So, to call Edward I of England's wife an English queen is both correct and incorrect. Her name at birth was Leonor and she grew up speaking Spanish. She had a French mother and an English grandmother, and lived her entire adult life as a queen of England. Foreign-born queens forged important links across the wide and diverse geography of Europe through the retinue of noblemen and women (scholars, clerics, writers, artists, architects, musicians), and books, music, fashion, and food, they brought with them. Eleanor, in her letters to her family in Castile, asked that ships coming to England bring her oranges- a touch of the Mediterranean to comfort her in the cool rainy winters of her new home. Foreign-born queens faced the sort of challenges a newcomer often does- new language, new customs, hostility from local nobles suspicious of outsiders. However, in ways both large and small, a queen was a powerful force for political, economic, intellectual, religious and cultural dispersion.

Theresa Earenfight - Queenship in Medieval Europe

[flastar13]

-And please historically accurate costumes or at least something that looks Tudor. All of Straz's series plus "The Tudors" didn't even bother to try to imitate the period-appropriate clothing their plots are supposedly based on, they just took any costume that said medieval/renaissance and used it. It's a shame that a 60's Anne of a Thousand Days movie (even with some questionable fabric choices, French hoods that looked more like Russian tiaras and dresses that laced up behind the back) is so much prettier than modern productions; such as the movie The Other Boleyn Girl, while there are nice dresses like Anne's green dress, there are the "Cranach" costumes in England, Chinese robes in the courtyard, the circle-print dresses, Mary's really weird peasant dresses and Anne's very anachronistic and boring execution outfit. Even the most decent designs are made of satin and silk, forgetting that other fabrics like brocade, velvet and damask existed at the time.

-Please stop depicting Anne as a vile, greedy, home-wrecking bitch who mistreats her sister, not only by stealing from the king but also by forcing her to be her servant. While there are few details of her relationship with Mary, and it is very likely that they had very opposite personalities, it does not mean that she did not love her sister.

-Please stop portraying Mary as a stupid whore or an innocent victim of her family's intrigues, it is true that you cannot say no to a king, but there is evidence that Thomas Boleyn actually hated kings noticing his daughters, when rumors spread that Mary was the mistress of King Francis of France, his reaction was not to encourage his daughter to take advantage but to send her back to England and marry her almost immediately. She may not have been able to do much when King Henry VIII took an interest in Mary, but when the monarch's eyes fell on Anne, he sent her to Hever. That at least to me shows me that contrary to popular culture, Thomas Boleyn never pimped his daughters out, instead he did everything in his power to keep them away from powerful men whom they could not refuse.

-It shows Mary as someone with will and intelligence even if she shows it differently than her sister.

-It shows Anne as a bitch at her worst especially with Mary I Tudor, but also as the kind woman who gave the equivalent of political asylum to hundreds of persecuted Protestants. She used her influence with Henry VIII to stop executions for heresy. During her time as queen, there were no burnings of heretics. She did more charity work than Queen Catherine of Aragon did in her entire reign.

-Anne did not steal her sister's son, she actually took him as a pupil to help Mary, her husband William Carey, when he died, left numerous debts as an inheritance forcing his widow to pawn her jewels to pay them, in addition to the fact that the Careys refused to comply with the marriage agreements. Anne basically alleviated her sister's financial expenses by taking charge of her nephew's education by sending him to a prestigious Cistercian monastery, where he had as tutor Nicholas de Bourbon, a French poet whose life was saved from the Inquisition by Anne. Mary continued to have active contact with her children, because Anne only helped her sister.

-There is no evidence that George Boleyn was homosexual, in fact it is more likely (although this evidence is weak at best) that he was a womanizer.

-He was not an imbecile who only rose to greatness because of his sisters, George Boleyn was a skilled diplomat and poet, in fact many mourned his loss after his execution. She probably went to Oxford University and France. She was basically the male version of Anne.

-Please stop portraying Jane Parker as a gossipy shrew jealous of her husband's closeness to her sister, going so far as to give false testimony to get them executed. There is no evidence that the marriage between Jane and George was unhappy. It is very likely that her testimony was misinterpreted.

-As for the cast, Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon and Mary I, were redheads, blue eyes and white skin, stop portraying them as dark-skinned, especially Catherine, not all Spaniards are dark-skinned with black eyes, this is told to you by a white-skinned Latina. Down with racial stereotypes.

-Stop forgetting Anne Boleyn's political and religious ideals, not everything was about annulling the marriage of English monarchs. She really believed in reform.

The White Falcon | a brand new series on Netflix | season 1

1507

Anne Boleyn is born at Hever Castle.

1513

Anne is sent to live at the court of Margaret of Austria.

1514

Anne leaves Margaret’s court and is sent to the household of Mary Tudor, the new Queen of France. She is joined by her sister, Mary.

1515

Mary Tudor is widowed, but Mary and Anne stay in France to serve the new Queen, Claude.

Thomas Boleyn’s grandfather, the Earl of Ormond dies, beginning his fight to inherit the Earldom.

1518

Anne is blossoming at the French court.

Mary Boleyn is having an affair with Francis I.

Mary’s affair is discovered and she’s summoned back to England to save her reputation.

1519

Mary becomes a maid of honor to Queen Catherine of Aragon and begins having an affair with King Henry.

1520

Mary’s affair with Henry has ended and she marries William Carey.

The whole Boleyn family meets again for the Field of Cloth of Gold.

1521

Anne Boleyn is summoned back to England.

[lightdancer1]

The Capetians laid the groundwork for the French state:

The history of France is in a very large part the history of Western Europe as it was the territory from which the Carolingian Empire that founded the core of Latin European civilization was spawned, and from which cultural winds blow and have blown to the rest of it. This is among the reasons it's so much fun to poke fun at the French because they're entirely aware of this and utterly insufferable about it. The medieval history of France, then Francia, the western portion of the divided Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun, begins with the Capetian Dynasty, which started with kings who were reduced from the swaggering autocrats of the Carolingian days to relatively minor rulers of a minor province.

By circumstance and determined effort and a great deal of luck in the unintended person of John Lackland, King of England, they were able to build the unpromising Ile De France into the basis of a kingdom that in turn encountered the succession problem and accordingly came perilously close to total collapse. That is the narrative charted here and it lays the point that the emergence of absolutism in France is not natural, it was a combination of deliberate choice and specific circumstances beyond the control or prediction even of Philip Augustus, the French King who did the most to turn the title of King from one with hollow powers to one of all too real ones. In the process it set in motion key developments of the medieval era, established feudalism in its classical form across the entirety of what's now France by fire and sword, and was the political backdrop to the dawn of universities and the next wave of educational and cultural flowering.

On the whole this is also a good corrective to the idea of both absolutism as some natural development and not a specifically promoted ideology with specific goals, and to the idea of there being a single predetermined destiny by which the course of events takes place. The course of Capetian France shows none of these, it was a contingent set of events where the deep structural forces and the willful acts of individuals overlapped in an uneasy pattern that in turn secured the future of Western Europe as one whose hub was in Paris more than London, not for the lack of trying by the rulers of Normandy-England and then the Angevin super-state, nor in the Holy Roman Empire that would fall prey to its own internal divisions in a manner that had some parallels in France but very different outcomes.

9/10.

[qqueenofhades]

I'd love to read your thoughts on powerful/badass/interesting medieval queens! I love the Queens of Infamy series on longreads. com, if you're familiar with it. Sending extra love and hugs. <3

Aha, thanks dear. It is much needed. I am sending you hugs in return.

As for badass medieval queens: they're obviously fun to read about, and most people with a passing acquaintance of history will know the most famous ones (Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Catherine de Medici, etc etc). However, as a historian who works on (among other things) medieval social and gender history, one of my chief focuses is getting people to think about all medieval women differently, not just the well-known royal ones. We all discard the "great men and European kings are the only people who played a role in medieval history and/or had influence in the world before modernity" hypothesis, and rightly so. But I feel as if the fetishizing of certain medieval queens, where the modern historiography and/or popular history points at them and goes, "LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS ONE WOMAN MANAGED TO BE IN A TERRIBLE RAPEY PATRIARCHAL WORLD!!!" is... to say the least, somewhat wrong-headed.

This is because it promotes the "exceptional woman" theory of history, where it is implied that one woman with superlative personal qualities managed to overcome the limits of patriarchal medieval society, and that all other women who weren't as "gifted" didn't do the same. You may recognize this as an offshoot of the "Extraordinary Negro" racist pseudoscience of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, wherein it was proposed that a few "superior" African-Americans could become almost (if not quite) culturally, intellectually, and socially white, overcoming the limits of their "inferior" race in these isolated special cases. If you can doubtless easily see why that is hella racist, you can also understand why applying the same framework to medieval women is equally ridiculous, reductive, and sexist.

Likewise, there is a lot of recent scholarship that strives to finally discredit this hypothesis once and for all, such as Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power 1100--1400: Moving Beyond the Exceptionalist Debate. Likewise, somewhat appropriately given what has happened today and the mustering of informal female social networks to effectively counter an unfavorable legal climate (once again, if anyone tells me Things Were So Much Worse Back Then For Women, I will punch something), the study of medieval women in community shows that they had collective as well as individual agency. As Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia puts it:

First, the emphasis on communities moves us firmly past any narrative of the exceptional woman who found ways to engage in independent political, social, or economic activity within otherwise constraining legal and social norms. Women, both as individuals and as groups, had the knowledge and skills to successfully interact with a variety of communities, and even create new ones when necessary. These communities also reveal the degree to which communities were structured around women's agency. [....] By moving beyond the binary of inclusion/exclusion, these authors acknowledge the ability of patriarchal norms to constrain women's activity and at the same time, for women to take action on behalf of themselves and their families.

This topic is likewise explored in Relations of Power: Women's Networks in the Middle Ages, and others that I can't think of right now. Anyway, this was a long-winded way of saying that while I love me a good badass medieval queen as much as anyone, that often comes with the prevailing stereotype that queens were the only medieval women able to wield any power at all (and then only if they were personally motivated to do so) and that therefore they're the only ones who are "interesting" or worth learning about. This obscures a lot of the important work that has been done on ordinary medieval women, their lives, and their networks of influence, and likewise props up other damaging myths about the Middle Ages that are continuing to be repeated today. So yes.

[lorewiththeo]

Fontaine and its Archon (theory/speculation)

Notice: This article is about the upcoming region of Fontaine, my speculations are clearly seperated from canon proof. You are more then welcomed to add information on any of my posts via dms/comments/asks.

Keyword: Irony

Name meaning and real-life reference

Fontaine is the French word for fountain/water spring.

The city of Fontaine is a French city located south east of France. Château de Fontainebleau is the name of a French palace (A/N: I highly recommend checking out this stunning piece of architectural art).

Therefore it is safe to assume this nation of Teyvat will be using France as its main real-life inspiration. Feudal France to be exact given Genshin's medieval like setting.

It is possible that Venice is a secondary reference.

“Venice has been known as the "La Dominante," "Serenissima," "Queen of the Adriatic," "City of Water," "City of Masks," "City of Bridges," "The Floating City," and "City of Canals."-Earth watching ESA

A city with many water canals sounds fitting for the hydro element, which Fontaine worships.

Water and masks(will be elaborated later) are the two most prominent concepts of Fontaine as of now.

The gadget “Kamera” originates from Fontaine in game. The inventors of cameras, the Lumiere brothers are French and early photography originated from France.

(A/N: If you know more parallels please let me know through an ask or a comment!)

The Hydro archon herself

Above is the gemstone required for hydro character ascentions. (Source: Honey Impact)

If you paid close attention to the wishful drop event(the quest that gives you Endora the mini-Oceanid), you can see that the Lochfolks like Rhodeia of Loch does not support the current hydro archon.

The Lochfolks are originally envoys, located in other six nations by the orders of the original hydro archon(one of the Original Seven). The original hydro archon wishes only to stay connected to the rest of the seven, therefore the Lochfolks mainly acted as messengers. But they do not seem to acknowledge the current hydro archon to be their boss.

The Lochfolk’s CN name is 纯水精灵, roughly translates to: “spirits/nymphs of pure water”.

“An assassin from our homeland? Or a fool who dares to tresspass the waters of Qingce?”

-Oceanid of Qingce, Rhodeia of Loch

The word "assassin". This implies that the current Hydro archon sees the Lochfolks as threats to her reign, and she had seeked/is seeking to eliminate them. Like Rhodeia, many of them have cut ties with Fontaine and is currently occupying bodies of water, waiting for their own demise. I suspect that politics and power struggle would be a heavy theme throughout Fontaine’s story quest. “Rhodeia of Loch” implies that there is/used to be a Loch clan in Fontaine. Albedo also said "we could bring in six Oceanids" during his experiment on the traveler.

There is also the title of the archon quest.

•The irony here being: Since the hydro archon’s title is the god of justice, then why is the archon quest of Fontaine called “Masquerade of the Guilty”? Maybe she obtained her position through unsavory means. (That is perhaps why the reason why the Oceanid refuses to recongize her as their god)

•Masquerade balls were quite popular in feudal Europe among the upper class. The attendees are obligatory to wear a mask, so their experssions and identity remains a secret.

•The CN title being “罪人舞步旋“, roughly translates to “The sinner’s whirling dance steps”

Both versions seem to imply this theme: someone had committed a crime, but said person did not recieved any punishment for it. Instead, they are enjoying a lavish, happy life. An outlaw who got away with their punishment.

The teyvat storyline preview lines about Fontaine:

“The god of justice lives for the spectacle of the court room, seeking to judge all other gods. But even she knows not to make an enemy of the divine.”

-Dainsleif the Bough Keeper

•It is a common tactic for someone guilty (of a crime) to accuse others to redirect attention. If the lochfolks are willing to answer to the Hydro archon, she would undoubtedly use them as eyes and ears to get dirt on the other archons. But she is not willing to go against the heavenly principles.

•My speculations on her true form: a mermaid/siren.

Sirens are mythical sea creatures, they appeared in several different cultures. They often have the appearance of breathtaking human women along with lovely singing voices. The word siren can be used in modern context if one wishes to describe "a woman who is very attractive but also dangerous"(Miriam Webster Dictionary).

Giving how frequent "guilty" and masks are mentioned, this divine lady of water seems to be a shady, trickster like character. And what's a water creature known for their deadly trickery? Sirens. Their singing attracted sailors and caused them to sail into dangerous water or toward rocks. Note that Sirens and Mermaids are not originally the same with seperate myths, see here. But popular depictions of them are often similar. In short, Sirens is commonly known to be a more sinister version of mermaids.

This could be symbolic to how Fontaine seems to be prosperous and peaceful on the surface level, but its fondation is nothing more then an enormous lie.

Fontaine storyline speculations

Some sort of revolution. Fontaine is based on Feudal France, so...

Rings a bell? Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France who is known for her ridiculous spending habits and "let them eat cake".

I do not think the hydro archon will get executed like the French Queen. Just stepping down from her divine position will be enough.

As formentioned, I believe politics and power struggles would play a big part in Fontaine's story arc. Agian, if you are familiar with the french revolutionary history, feel free to add to this!!

[horizon-verizon]

First, The argument is that the reveal of infidelity is what is important, not the infidelity and bastardry themselves. Because the feudal/medieval patriarchal system in place makes a woman's infidelity a problem when it innately is not except in a consensually monogamous relationship. Which is not exactly what medieval marriages were. And wasn't Rhaenyra's either....since you know, Laenor was gay and couldn't ever impregnate her despite the fact he tried on the show.

Have you also read the posts @rhaenyragendereuphoria gave in their reblog? They all go into this argument, which you didn't touch or try to disprove.

You seemed to totally skip over the part where rhaenyragendereuphoria points out how Phillpe le Bel's daughter Isabelle purposefully exposed the women for her own benefit, going later on to do the same things. Alicent doesn't sleep around or have a lover, but she also accuses to gain.

That was the point.

Second, Vaemond Velaryon didn't necessarily care about bastardry but about power when you break it down. Did he talk all that talk about bastards and pure blood and all that because he thought these things important and defining? Yes. And why did he protest? Because he wanted to inherit. That motivation was enough for him to openly try to get others to see Rhaenyra's children as bastards. Why? Because if he is successful, then he gets to get the Driftmark seat and all its powers, privileges, lands, etc. It wasn't about keeping his house safe so much as he thought he should gain control and disagrees with Corlys, who I have to remind you, on the show was fine with leaving Driftmark to Lucerys even though the show also tries to make it clear that everyin, including Corlys, knew those boys were not Laenor's biological kids. The show is very clear on that. Corlys didn't want Vaemond to inherit and made specific movements to not have him inherit.

So Vaemond, while declaring that he was trying to keep bloodlines "pure" -- which is already a cultural, fake, patriarchal concept -- was simultaneously going against the wishes of the House Head. And for what? Power.

Bastardry and the focus on female chastity instead of male chastity and fidelity both come from the perceived disadvantage of a noble man (who was left with the decision-making power and were customarily the ones to inherit total power and authority) not being assured that the child produced comes from the man since cis men do not birth. Women do.

This is why you see so many restrictions on women's movements, dress, actions, and sexuality form an early age in these societies -- to present images of not being "ruined", or touched by a man that their parents/authorities have not assigned to this girl/woman. I write to an anon HERE about the Anstey Case of the c.1160s HERE. And I talk about why Viserys chooses to continue to keep Rhaenyra's children's rights even though he had to know they weren't Laenor's HERE. This is another person you seem to have totally ignored or forgotten, an example of a man/male ruler choosing to not rock the boat for himself, as a rebuttal to your example of The King of France and "fought wars with the vassals and the Flemish....".

Btw, this also just revealing how it is people, not bastardry, who endanger succession because you brought up a situation where the ruler felt, from how he observed his own situation before and during the reveal of his daughters-in-law infidelity, that he needed them gone. Viserys had the ability to just keep stuff under wraps, because as rhaenyragendereuphoria ALREADY noted, there was plausible deniability. Again, where is the part where you try to disprove their specific arguments instead of deflecting and ignoring? Acknowledging those arguments?

Anyway, point is the Vaemond made it a big deal because he wanted to get something out of it, therefore he got munched.

Thirdly, in the book, Vaemond's relatives' tongues were taken out after protesting Rhaenyra killing Vaemond. True. I already said here that Vaemond invited danger to himself in his bid to gain power that he independently wanted and tried to gain by calling Rhaenyra's sons bastards and trying to gain agreement or force Viserys to "admit" it.

Vaemond's relatives', knowing that Viserys already OPENLY announced that no one should ever question Rhaenyra's kids' parentage. Those relatives did so anyway. They knew why Vaemond did what he did, and still expected Viserys to just...recompense them? And Viserys never punished Rhaenyra, nor would he because, again, he already said that no one should do that, and Vaemond did it anyway.

Quote from Book:

Even this did not end the matter, however. Ser Vaemond’s younger cousins fled to King’s Landing with his wife and sons, there to cry for justice and place their claims before the king and queen. King Viserys had grown extremely fat and red of face, and scarce had the strength to mount the steps to the Iron Throne. His Grace heard them out in a stony silence, then ordered their tongues removed, every one. “You were warned,” he declared, as they were being dragged away. “I will hear no more of these lies.”

("A Question of Succession")

So in that moment, though violent, it was already forewarned. And Viserys, being King who's word is law and needs to back up said word, ruled their tongues should be cut out for going against his law/word.

This was also after the constant pressures of Alicent and the incident of Vhagar and Aemond's eye. It is reasonable to see that both Viserys and Rhaenyra were just done with these and decided to go hard and fast against these people. Which, I must remind people, is actually something feudal people want: decisive leader/monarchs who back up their words.

So this also shows how you have ignored and have not sufficiently made an argument against that VISERYS, the King, the analogue to your "King of France...", deciding to keep Rhaenyra's kids openly legitimate despite the fact that he would likely have known they weren't Laenor's. Viserys point blank acted differently from the King of France we're talking about here, and he decided to. Why? I already say why in my linked post that I am sure will probably get ignored, but ultimately because he both saw this as the easier way to maintain control and Rhaenyra's claim/succession PLUS his personal affection and regard for her.

I also include mentions and quotes from Herman's Sex with the Queen many times in my posts about medieval/monarchial/feudal women and infidelity whenever this is mentioned. Maybe take a read of that?

Finally, we're not in a story where the reasons to uphold the classist status quo goes un-criticized. GRRM is writing a story--that F&B is a part of--to re-humanize &heroize dehumanized groups of people like bastards, women, peasants, children. Vaemond is one of thise that serves as an antihthesis to the protection or advancement of one of these people, Rhaenyra--a woman--for his onw advancement. To put it very simply.

I’m finally reading the Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon, I had not realized it covered the case of Marguerite and Blanche of Burgundy and ummm….. really has forcibly put HoTD back into historical perspective for me.

For those not familiar with it, the daughters-in-law of King Philip the Fair of France, Marguerite (married to the eldest son Louis) and Blanche (married to the youngest son Charles) were both caught having an affair with a pair of brothers. Needless to say, it does not end well for any of the parties involved. The men were flayed, hanged, and beheaded, and the two princesses were imprisoned, with Marguerite being murdered a year later so that her husband could remarry. And her daughter, Jeanne, who would have been the heiress of France, may or may not be a bastard, so is forcibly removed from the line of succession by the invention of Salic law, which dictates that the crown can only pass to men through the male line. (Since Louis who may or may not have been her father died without any male heirs) Unsurprisingly, this causes problems! And partly sparks (among other things) the Hundred Years War between France and England.

Having bastards is serious business with serious consequences for married women. And YES, it is absolutely unfair and ridiculous that men can do it with far fewer consequences, but the show downplayed what those consequences can be. In GoT, the whole starting point is that Cersei has illegitimate children and passed them off as her husbands, and people are killed to keep that secret. Not to mention the humiliating punishment that she has to endure, and she was only being punished for having sex as a widow!!!

My point is that Rhaenyra having bastard children is kinda downplayed in the show, and that this IS a big deal both historically and in universe was glossed over.

[statecryptids]

ROUGAROU- LOUISIANA

original post here: http://statecryptids.blogspot.com/2022/04/rougarou-louisiana.html

A strange, unearthly cry echoes across the mirrored surface of the Louisiana bayou, echoing off scattered cypress and tupelo dripping with Spanish moss. Is this merely the call of a wading bird? A lone puma? Or is it the shriek of the man-wolf creature known as the Rougarou?

Rougarou is a Cajun variation on “loup garou”, the French word for werewolf. France has a long history of werewolf folklore. In the 16th century these creatures were often blamed for crimes such as disappearances, animal killings, and particularly violent burglaries. In a parallel to the infamous witch hunts also taking place at the time, scared and panicked villagers would usually accuse someone living outside the societal norms of the time- such as a hermit in the woods, or a person with mental illness- as being the beast. Once accusations had been made, the condemned had little ability to defend themselves in court other than to “confess” to being a werewolf and implicate others in their ddeds.

Many legends existed to explain how one became a loup garou. Some men (medieval werewolves were almost always masculine) could change by putting on a wolf’s skin- a possible link to legends of the Norse berserker warriors who would don bear skins to take on the beast’s power. Some people would become werewolves through cannibalism and other debauchery. Catholic priests claimed that a man who didn’t observe Lent for seven straight years would become a werewolf.

Stories of the loup garou came to North America in the 17th century with French settlers in the Acadia region, located in what is now Eastern Canada. In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, the British colonial government took over the region and forcibly deported most of the ethnically French Acadians.  Many of these displaced people settled in Louisiana, originally a colony of France that was ceded to Spain in 1762. The Spanish government was fairly tolerant of the settlers, allowing them to continue their cultural practices- which included tales of the loup garou.

In modern times the rougarou has become more of a boogeyman to frighten children. Parents warn their kids not to misbehave or play in the swamp or else the beast will come for them. These stories usually do not make it clear if the creature is a transformed human or if it is always a humanoid beast akin to the Beast of Bray Road and other dogmen of the Midwest.

Despite- or, more likely, because of- its frightening appearance and behavior, the Rougarou has become a popular part of Louisiana culture. Costumes based on the creature frequently appear in Mardi Gras celebrations, and the city of Houma even has an annual festival themed around the creature.

SOURCES Rougarou Fest in Houma, Louisiana  A page from www.pelicanstateofmind.com about the rougarou A post from www.whereyat.com about the rougarou National Wildlife Federation article on the rougarou Article from Tulane magazine about the rougarou Blog posts from Dr. Kaja Franck about werewolves Monstrum episodes on Werewolves, hosted by Dr. Emily ZarkaPart 1Part 2