#the frederic chronicles

[writerswho]

Why are women's clothes so tight and men's clothes so ugly? Where are the clothes that fit nicely and are pretty?

[stpansy]

Love From the Other Side - So Much (for) Stardust / Orpheus and Eurydice, Ovid, translated by A.S. Kline / Orpheus and Eurydice - George Frederic Watts / Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut / youputthefuninfuneral / Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare / Romeo and Juliet: the Tomb Scene - Joseph Wright of Derby / Miss Missing You - The Youngblood Chronicles - Save Rock and Roll

[pomp-quio]

tagged by @cattus-catos 💛 who has excellent opinions and always accurate takes (especially about Crassus) -

last book i read: Dragonfly by Frederic S Durbin. I try to intersperse my mostly classics and french revolution reading with my second great love, fantasy books. Dragonfly is a cute little creepy standalone novel that I read when I was a teenager and ended up reading again recently.

book i recommend: Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I have no explanation exactly for why but this is hands-down my favourite book. So it goes.

book i couldn't put down: Babel by R F Kuang. I was a bit concerned because I generally don't enjoy the plots of BookTok books, BUT the subtitle (The Necessity of Violence) intrigued me. And let me tell you I was blown away by this book. It was a bit clunky at times but I loved every second and coming from a country that is still recovering from its colonial past, with our own national language that is considered uneducated, crass, and rough, it just hit very hard.

book i've read twice: I'm a chronic book repeater because my brain is swiss cheese, but the one book I regularly re-read for fun (and sadness) is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It's such a good book, actually I'm probably due for a re-read again! Also Watership Down by Richard Adams, I love that book so much ✨prince with a thousand enemies✨. And of course I have read the Odyssey several times!

a book on my tbr: my current TBR list stands at over 300 books (my Goodreads is Pompey Watching if you're interested). I think the next book I pick up will be The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk.

a book i've put down: Decolonising the Maltese Mind by Charles Xuereb. Not because it's bad but because I get so pissed off at the British every few paragraphs that I genuinely just need to take a mental break.

a book on my wishlist: oh dear there are so many. I desperately want the clothbound versions of the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost, and Inferno. I also REALLY want a physical copy of Sextus Pompeius by Anton Powell and Kathryn Welch, but its so expensive.

a favourite book from childhood: The Edge Chronicles The Edge Chronicles The Edge Chronicles I will never be okay about them, the plot, the arcs, the art, the characters!!!

a book you would give to a friend: Feral by George Monbiot. I am first and foremost an environmental/animal girlie and while I have some criticisms about this book, it genuinely argues for a lot of what I believe in when speaking about wildlife rehabilitation.

a book of poetry/lyrics you own: I sadly own very few poetry books! I do have a copy of Wilfred Owen's war poetry which makes me far too emotional for my own good.

a non-fiction book you own: so many! I have a lot of animal behaviour books, wild fauna books, french revolution books, and ancient Rome books. I guess one of my favourites would be Choosing Terror by Marisa Linton.

currently reading: House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewaki, Lucan's Pharsalia (Susan Braund trans), yay Pharsaliabookclub, and Xuan s posts made me start the Epic of Gilgamesh but I'm only at the introduction so far!

planning on reading next: I never quite know what I'm going to read next but it will probably The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. I also want to get started on the Thebaid, but I fear reading it at the same time as Pharsalia will do some irreparable damage to my brain!

I'm tagging @kushielsmercy (Shiel this is my Rome sideblog hello and welcome sorry you had to find out like this) and @burritofriedrich ❤️❤️❤️

[royalcorgisanddorgis]

Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain visits San Francisco. She is seen here with Prince Philip at a reception at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco on March 3, 1983. | Jerry Telfer/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain visits San Francisco. Her majesty's Yacht Britannia is going under the Bay Bridge to Pier 50 to dock, March 4, 1983 Photo ran 03/05/1983, p. 14 (Photo by Frederic Larson/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

[dreadfutures]

203 Dragon Age: Inquisition Quests

A prompt list of selected quests, for randomized writing prompts. Please send the number AND say that this is a DAI Quest Prompt when you prompt someone.

The Wrath of Heaven

The Threat Remains

In Hushed Whispers

Champions of the Just

In Your Heart Shall Burn

From the Ashes

Here Lies the Abyss

Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts

What Pride Had Wrought

The Final Piece

Doom Upon All the World

Haven's Best and Brightest

Know Thy Enemy

Mixing Potions

Passing Notes

Piece by Piece

The Right Armor

A Common Treatment

A Healing Hand

A Rare Treatment

A Spirit in the Lake

Agrarian Apostate

An Advanced Treatment

Apostates in Witchwood

The Ballad of Lord Woolsley

Bergrit's Claws

Blood Brothers

Business Arrangements

Conscientious Objector

Deep Trouble

East Road Bandits

Failure to Deliver

Farmland Security

Flowers for Senna

Hinterland Who's Who

Holding the Hinterlands

Horses for the Inquisition

Hunger Pangs

In the Elements

In the Saddle

Letter from a Lover

Love Waits

Master of Horses

My Lover's Phylactery

Open a Vein

Playing with Fire

Praise the Herald of Andraste

Return Policy

Safeguards Against Looters

Shallow Breaths

Stone Dreams

Strange Bedfellows

Templars to the West

The Mercenary Fortress

The Vault of Valammar

Trouble with Wolves

Where the Druffalo Roam

Lost Souls

Beacons in the Dark

Beneath the Mire

Cabin Fever

Holding the Mire

These Demons Are Clever

After Skyhold

Cleaning House

A Glowing Key

Holding the Storm Coast

Keeping the Darkspawn Down

Red Water

Sutherland and Company Missing

Vigilance on the Coast

Wardens of the Coast

Still Waters

Capturing Caer Bronach

Burdens of Command

High Stakes

Holding Crestwood

Homecoming

The Naturalist

Weeding Out Bandits

Wyrm Hole

A Bear to Cross

A Corrupt General

A Deluded Chevalier

A Fallen Sister

A Lover's Promise

A Puppet Master

A Vicious Thug

Chateau d'Onterre

Devotion

Fairbanks' Trust

Fairbanks Patrol Under Attack

Holding the Emerald Graves

Last Wishes

Motherly Encouragement

Noble Deeds, Noble Heart

Not Everyone's Free

Observing the Menace

Safe Keeping

The Freemen of the Dales

The Knights' Tomb

The Tiniest Cave

Victims of War

Watcher's Reach Refugees

Capturing Suledin Keep

A Timely Intervention

Breeding Grounds

Caged Confession

Call Me Imshael

Mama's Ring

Quarry Quandary

Red Captors

Rocky Rescue

Securing Safe Passage

Sifting Through Rubble

Stalker Stalker

Take Back the Lion

The Corruption of Sahrnia

They Shall Not Pass

Turning the Tables

Valeska's Watch

Words not Hollow

A Dalish Perspective

A Familiar Ring

A Father's Guidance

A Well-Stocked Camp

Another Side, Another Story

By the Grace of the Dalish

Calming Victory Rise

For the Empire

From the Beyond

Ghilan'nain's Grove

Holding the Exalted Plains

Lay Rest the Ramparts

Left to Grieve

No Word Back

Pressed for Cache

Scattered Glyphs

Silence on the Plains

Someone to Lose

Something to Prove

The Golden Halla

The Spoils of Desecration

Undead Ramparts to the West

God of Secrets

Runes in the Lost Temple

Ruined Blade

Assault on Griffon Wing

A Manuscript of Some Authority

A Stranger Rift in the Ruins

A Tevinter Relic Hunt

Fortress Squatters

Frederic's Livelihood

Holding the Western Approach

Hunting Patterns

Into the Approach

On the Chantry Trail

Sharper White Claws

The Heart of the Still Ruins

The Trouble with Darkspawn

The Venatori

This Water Tastes Funny

A Prideful Place

The Door in Par'as Cavern

The Temple of Pride

What It's Worth

Shard Collector

Sand and Ruin

The Tomb of Fairel

Field of Bones

Let's Slay the Beast

Ameridan's End

Avvar Allies

The Basin Beckons

Beasts at Bay

A Father's Name

Guests of the Hold

Hakkon Wintersbreath

Hakkon's Trials

In Exile

It Remains to be Seen

Jawbreaker

Lead the Charge

The Loss of a Friend

The Mystery of Winter

The Nox Morta

On Ameridan's Trail

Storvacker Caged

They Came From Somewhere Else

Up and Away

What Yet Lingers

Where Once We Walked

Builder's Towers

Chronicles of Forgotten Wars

The Descent

Exploring the Deep Roads

Holding the Deep Roads

Killing Me Softly

On Broken Knees

Rune-Warded Gate of Segrummar

Sacrificial Gates of Segrummar

A Second Rune-Warded Gate

A Warm Welcome

[minayuri]

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Gertrude Welcker! ❤️

(July 16, 1896 – August 1, 1988)

Gertrude Welcker was a stage and silent film actress; her film career was short lived, lasting from 1917 to 1925. The role she’s best known as, the alluring and enigmatic Countess Dusy Told of Fritz Lang’s 1922 epic crime thriller masterpiece, Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler.

Below is a summary of her life and career, with the people she had collaborated with as an actress.

She was born in Dresden, Saxony, Germany on July 16, 1896. Her younger brother Herbert was born in 1898. Gertrude’s father worked as editor-in-chief and general manager of the Posener Tageblatt, he died in 1909.

During the First World War, she visited Max Reinhardt’s acting school in Berlin. In 1915-16, she had starred in productions at the Albert Theatre in her hometown. During the years of 1916-19, Welcker performed at Deutsches, Kammerspiele, and Volksbühne theatres. Her stage roles include portraying a prostitute in August Strindberg’s Meister Olaf, Lesbia in Friedrich Hebbel's Gyges and His Ring, Recha in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, Sister Martha in Gerhart Hauptmann's The Ascension of Little Hannele, and Desdemona and Jessica in William Shakespeare’s Othello and Merchant of Venice respectively.

Her film debut in 1917 was in Felix Basch’s Eine Nacht in der Stahlkammer as Jane Kendall, starring Harry Liedtke as her husband. Her next film was as an angel in Hans Trutz in the Land of Plenty, starring and directed by her stage collaborator Paul Wegener. The film also featured film director Ernst Lubitsch who portrayed Satan.

In 1918, she was in Lupu Pick’s Der Weltspielgel with Bernd Aldor and Reinhold Schünzel. She also starred in Viggo Larsen's The Adventure of a Ball Night with Paul Bildt and Paul Biensfeldt.

Welcker was also in Carl Froelich’s Der Tänzer with Walter Janssen.

She was the lead in the low-budget films, Die Geisha und der Samurai in 1919 and Eine Frau mit Vergangenheit in 1920.

Gertrude Welcker acted in films alongside Conrad Veidt, but those films are sadly considered lost. They portrayed siblings in F.W. Murnau’s Evening – Night – Morning and in Carl Boese’s Nocturne of Love, with Veidt as Frederic Chopin. (I, for one, would’ve loved for her to have been in a film as one of his leading ladies!)

In Hans Werckmeister’s 1920 sci-fi film, Algol: Tragedy of Power, she portrayed Leonore Nissen opposite Emil Jannings. It also starred Hanna Ralph, Hans Adalbert Schlettow (whom Welcker would appear with in Part II of Dr. Mabuse), and John Gottowt. The sets of the film were designed by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’s Walter Reimann.

She also appeared in Richard Oswald’s Lady Hamilton in 1921 as Arabella Kelly, in her first scene she is seen with Theodor Loos.

In 1922, Welcker portrayed her most infamous role as Countess Told in Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, with Aud Egede-Nissen, Alfred Abel, and Bernhard Goetzke. Also, in that same year - Welcker was in Carl Froelich’s Luise Millerin, an adaptation of Friedrich Schiller's Intrigue and Love as Lady Emilie Milford, another of her noteworthy roles. Previously, she was in a stage production portraying the role of Lady Milford's maid, Sophie. The film's all-star cast featured Lil Dagover as the title character, Paul Hartmann, Walter Janssen, Friedrich Kühne, Fritz Kortner, Werner Krauss, and Reinhold Schünzel.

She portrayed the villainess Gesine von Orlamünde of Arthur von Gerlach’s 1925 period drama film, Chronicles of the Grey House. It stars Lil Dagover, Paul Hartmann, Rudolf Forster, and Rudolf Rittner. Thea von Harbou was the film’s screenwriter with music composed by Gottfried Huppertz.

Her final film role was in Goetz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand as Adelheid von Walldorf. She continued to act on stage until 1930. She has a total of 64 film credits to her name.

Around July 1930, Welcker married the Swedish painter Otto Gustaf Carlsund. She met him while on a trip to Paris. Their marriage lasted until August of 1937 and had no children. Before WWII broke out, she worked as an editor for UFA and by 1941, was active for the Red Cross. Some time before the war's end, she managed to leave for Sweden, and lived the rest of her life there.

It’s a great loss that so many of the films Gertrude Welcker did are considered lost and that her career as a film actress was as short as it was. Certainly, that many of those lost films showcased her great versatility. Gertude Welcker carried a remarkable set of talent, grace, beauty, charisma, and wit and is one of my most favorite actresses of the silent era I love.

Her filmography can be viewed here and here.

[nacricissa]

The Forever Project

Uh I realized I haven't got a WIP intro for anything That's because the work is arguably not in progress

But it's also the only thing I think about and I love to talk about it so...

There will definitely be several books, but this will function mostly for the first one, which is the only one with even vaguely defined parameters

We have been keeping secrets for some time now. We bear no ill will toward you, but we feared that you would take your knowledge of these things as a reason to harm us. You cannot overpower us, even if you should attempt to act against us, however, in the hope we could achieve our ends without conflict, we did keep things from the Council, until recent events forced our hand.

         We hope that despite our lack of openness, we can come to an arrangement. In service of this, we have compiled this document. Everything you need to understand us is presented here, and we ask that you read it in its entirety before judging us or attempting to negotiate. We will know whether you have complied.

--- Frederic Melior, and his sword Elise

Genre: High Fantasy/ Historical Urban Fantasy

Target Audience: ME

POV: First-person, past tense, as of now from only one POV

Blend Pitch: The Bane Chronicles spent a lot of time thinking about religion and multidimensional time travel

Themes: Great Power/Great Responsibility, The impossibility of perfection, the power of environment on a person's character

Characters below the cut:

Mary Elizabeth (Elise) Godslayer: She is the greatest weapon of All Time, forged to slay the Gods, strayed from her purpose. She's a Tumblr girlie with albinism ripped from her middle class life in the year 2014 to be wielded by her brother. She disagrees, and as she stumbles through her cataclysmic abilities, bending time and creating a whole universe entirely by accident, she ends up connected to Frederic, who would be an excellent Chosen Wielder if he wasn't a turn-of-the-century German aristocrat with the commensurate views on women and people of colour.

Frederic (Eric) Melior Fitzgerald: He was the first son of his family to survive to ten years old. By the time Eric was conscious of the world around him, his mother was widowed and spending a disturbing amount of her wealth to fund a sect that claimed to be fighting the forces of darkness within the world. When he completes a ritual in the cult which should get him the sword stashed behind the curtain, his ancestry kicks in and a white-haired pale-eyed girl who speaks a very strange English appears in his mind instead, granting him a degree of magic he had never anticipated. He will later learn that the reason this bogus ritual worked for him, and no one else, has a great deal to do with how his father died shortly after his birth, and his mother often seems to forget her own name.

Davriel Godslayer: Davriel is Elise's brother, and he for one is totally fine with the massacre every deity plan they were handed at birth. While his own magic is not very strong, his spellcasting is very practiced, and despite Elise's constant efforts to block him out, they still have enough of a connection that he can always seem to get at least a bit of her power to try to coerce her back to weapon of mass destruction status. However, while chasing his sister through the multiverse, he gets to see more people who happily live with the Gods as they are, and would in fact be devastated by their loss, not to mention the unnamed god.

the unnamed god: This god cannot have a name. He thinks of himself as being male, but inherently has no gender. He can't, because that would represent too much specificity, at which point a being with that specific trait would begin to exist. He is simply powerful, and benevolent. Two traits assigned by thousands of hypothetical "if there is a god" and "anyone listening" thoughts. Any prayer with no destination, any faith with no object, any belief with enough conviction but not widely shared enough to be a true religion. They all feed into him, and there is little he can do to direct that power back. There is no world which is his, in the same way the named gods have.

All Time: An amalgamation of various anthropomorphizations of the concept of Time. Gods which are similar enough will have their souls and consciousnesses merge together, making one entity responsible for and drawing power from multitudinous dimensions. This guy, while focusing his Cronus aspect, made Elise and Davriel to destroy the faith-based gods (which function differently than gods emergent from a concept).

The Dark God & The God of Faith: These are faith-based gods which, through machinations of the Dark God and the God of the Hunt ended up co-opting their emergent gods and exiling themselves to Eric's world, only half-alive and merged together. Their arrival created unleashed two races of beings on the world, as each god tried to pull apart from their combined form and failed. Vampires; faith absent darkness, and Wraiths, darkness absent faith.

[beingkhalilanthony]

(thelongestlineinberlin)

[bubblegum-blackwood]

I make fun of Marius de Romanus for having a crush on Botticelli because of his painting style as if I didn't do the exact same thing with Oscar Wilde and his writings AND Fryderyk Chopin and his music.

[writerswho]

I dreamt that Weems was back to season two. She was resurrected by this person who was basically Carmen Santiago and she was Weems wife and they both were the season villains.

[hawkepockets]

once upon a dream 🌷

[channelfrederator]

Fans, panels, and awesomeness! That's pretty much what The Kindergarten meet up was all about!

We had a lot of fun hanging out with some Channel Frederator Network members and meeting you guys! Here are the highlights! More live events to come in the future!

Want to become a part of the Channel Frederator Network? Click here to learn how: http://www.channelfrederatornetwork.com/join/

[onenettvchannel]

BREAKING NEWS: Bee and Puppycat has now greenlighted to Netflix after turning them over from the YouTube Originals and VRV [#RadyoBanderaEXCLUSIVE]

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA -- A former streaming service platform of YouTube Originals and VRV (which is now merged over to Crunchyroll in March 2021, alongside with Funimation) as Frederator Studios has officially announced that it is now greenlighted last Tuesday morning (August 9th, 2022 - Eastern local time).

WOW! Unlimited Media and Polygon was first reported that, Bee and Puppycat was picked up by a global streaming platform known as Netflix per ongoing pandemic of Coronavirus Disease-19 (CoViD-19) worldwide. Some sources told exclusively to Radyo Bandera, the YouTube Originals and VRV will no longer releasing its newest episodes for now after it was privately leaked online from Vimeo in early mid-year of 2020.

There is nothing new in this series as of this writing but, Oriental Light and Magic Inc. (OLM) and Netflix Animation Studio (NAS) finishes all the episodes in advance before the said streaming platform after nearly 10 years of its internet televised debut with a complicated licensing issues from the start. The news team of Radyo Bandera confirms that a televised cartoon show will be rebooted and improved animation for both Season 1 and 2 that affects between the regular pilot and Lazy in Space.

Official synopsis from Netflix: "On a charming magical island, the impulsive Bee and her furry pal (Puppycat) get up to all sorts of adventures while working for an intergalactic temp agency".

The series was originally conceived as a streaming televised web series and was released on YouTube in mid-July 2013 and followed by VRV in November 2016. Show creator in Citrus County of Inverness, Florida, United States of America (U.S.A.) named Natasha Allegri, who was a former storyboard artist and revisionist of Cartoon Network per genderswap versions of Adventure Time before she was debuted an official spin-off to HBO Max of "Fionna and Cake" in mid-August 2021. Allegri was acquired to Frederator Studios since the start of its own cartoon show after it was originated and funded by Kickstarter in mid-November 2013.

During the 2nd Season FINALE of Bee and Puppycat titled "I Won't Leave You Alone", there is an easter egg with a distorted color logo of Alto Broadcasting System-Chronicle Broadcasting Network (ABS-CBN, which is now Kapamilya Channel) under DWWX-TV 2 in Quezon City, Manila. We don't have any possible confirmation from the ABS-CBN Entertainment to its similarity, in connection with the said cartoon show.

Streaming fans are excited to see a newly-rebooted and improved cartoon show from the actual YouTube Originals and VRV. This may subject for a runtime change from Season 1 alone into a half-hour friendly episodes. Sci-fi fantasy-animated web series makes a comeback for generations if Season 3 will soon happen with another funding for public broadcasting online in pay-per-streaming format.

Bee and Puppycat is slated to premiere exclusively in all seasons at once starting September 6th, 2022 at MIDNIGHT PDT / 3am EDT / 3pm in Manila / 2am CDT, only on Netflix.

PHOTO COURTESY: Fred Seibert via Twitter BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna

SOURCE: *https://twitter.com/bapuppycatpics/status/1556976653317857280 *https://twitter.com/fredseibert/status/1562277899297628160 *https://wegotthiscovered.com/tv/bee-and-puppycat-netflix-release-date-and-trailer/ [Referenced News Article #1 from We Got This Covered! News] *https://netflixlife.com/2022/08/12/bee-and-puppycat-release-date-cast-synopsis-trailer/ [Referenced News Article #2 from Netflix Life] *https://twinfinite.net/2022/08/bee-and-puppycat-trailer-shows-off-life-in-the-space-temp-agency/ [Referenced News Article #3 from Twinfinite] *https://www.thegamer.com/bee-and-puppycat-netflix-lost-in-space-reboot/ [Referenced News Article #4 from The Gamer] *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow_Unlimited_Media *https://www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/10/6/21504068/bee-and-puppycat-season-2-netflix-release [Referenced News Article #5 from Polygon] *https://frederatorstudios.com/about-frederator-studios/ *https://beeandpuppycat.fandom.com/wiki/VRV *https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2022/03/01/funimation-content-moving-to-crunchyroll-for-worlds-largest-anime-library [Referenced News Article #6f from Crunchyroll News] *https://www.netflix.com/title/81245457 *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time:_Fionna_and_Cake and *https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frederator/bee-and-puppycat-the-series/posts/662515

-- OneNETnews Team

[shimyereh]

I was recently thinking about how the concept of marking people’s ages by summers is a thing that exists in both English and Russian.

In English, I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen this used poetically. I can immediately think of two examples from Gilbert & Sullivan. In the Act I finale of Ruddigore, Rose enters to: “Hail the Bride of seventeen summers!” In Act I of Pirates, Ruth pleads with Frederic: “Take a maiden tender — her affection raw and green, / At very highest rating, / Has been accumulating / Summers seventeen…” Wiktionary adds that this usage is esp. for younger ages — which checks out with those examples, each emphasizing (or attempting to emphasize) a character’s youth.

In Russian, the word for “year”, год/god, takes the alternate genitive plural лет/let [lit. “summers”, declined from лето] when it’s used for counting numbers of years. So most ages are actually given in summers! I’ve definitely seen years referred to as “summers” in other contexts, too, typically in the plural (лета) and with a somewhat poetic feel. Looking at the etymology, I see Old Church Slavonic лѣто/leto means both “summer” and “year”.

Also, note words like летопись/letopis’ [chronicle, lit. “summer/year” + “write” --> “record of summers, yearly record”]. English has “annals”, which comes from Latin annales libri [books of years], without the double meaning of “summers”. (And then there’s also English “chronicle” and Russian хроника/khronika, which both trace back to Greek χρόνος/khrónos [time].)

Why mark years by summers, in particular? My guess would be it’s something to do with summer as the prime of the year, in a metaphorical framework where spring is new life and winter is death.

[dwellordream]

“…The ideas that animate Harlequin romance novels, Game of Thrones, and Disney movies alike can be traced back to the nineteenth century. Look at the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and others influenced by them—works like John William Waterhouse’s “Lady of Shalott” (1888) and Frederic William Burton’s “The Meeting on the Turret Stairs” (1864)—and you’ll see some very familiar figures.

These canvases reflect popular Victorian understandings of medieval ladies: passive, slender, aristocratic, the objects of knightly devotion. These women have never laboured in the fields with sunburned necks or callused hands. Their clothing and flowing hairstyles are eclectic, designed more to make nineteenth-century audiences think about a distant, misty, heroic past than to accurately reproduce any given moment in the Middle Ages. And, they are, invariably, white.

Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. These paintings were produced when European imperialism was at its zenith; when Darwinian theories of evolution were twisted to justify colonialism and social hierarchies based on race; and when a supposed early-medieval “Teutonic”—or Germanic—ancestry for the white Protestant populations of Britain and North America was claimed to be the reason for the explosive economic growth of those regions.

They were also painted at the same time that white people in Europe and the Americas were enjoying steadily increasing standards of living—in large part thanks to the backbreaking, and often coerced, labour of those in colonised places. Black and brown women helped to shape history, but Victorian society excluded them from the category of “lady” because of the colour of their skin.

Nineteenth-century thinkers drew on the medieval past in order to justify racial and class inequities, or burgeoning notions of nationalism. These thinkers racialised the medieval lady. They idealised her as white, passive, and unsuited to manual labour. In doing so, they made her into a rationale as to why her elite, white, female descendants could sip tea in parlours while brown and black women toiled in the fields—or in their houses—to bring them that tea. The status quo was given such a venerable heritage that it was made to seem natural, even inevitable. Such ideas were then, and are now, pervasive and insidious. They were absorbed by white women, by Disney animators, by the makers of Halloween costumes, and even by those who write histories.

But what happens if we take the medieval lady off her pedestal? What kind of woman do we see inhabiting the Middle Ages if we try to peel off the Victorian veneer of chivalry and politesse? Does looking at what medieval people actually did in the past tell us something about our own assumptions concerning race and gender? In part, this is a process where we have to reconsider the language we use. What do we mean by “lady”? What did medieval people mean by the term? Or, rather, since most texts produced in western Europe in the Middle Ages were written in Latin, what were the connotations which they associated with the word domina?

The first key difference is that the modern English word “lady” simply doesn’t have the aura of power which the Latin word domina did in the Middle Ages. A domina was a woman with authority and moral rectitude in her own right, not simply the consort or complement to a dominus (lord). A domina (and holders of other Latin titles applied to women in medieval records, like comitissa, vicedomina or legedocta) administered estates and adjudicated legal disputes. It did not matter whether she held her title by inheritance or through marriage. Those who held titles in their own right, or those who were widowed, could exercise significant power over fiefs and vassals.

For example, when Matilda, countess of Tuscany (1046-1115), was referred to as domina, it was because she controlled a large swathe of northern Italy. She was the mediator during the famous meeting between Pope Gregory VII and the German emperor Henry IV at her great fortress of Canossa. In doing so, she influenced the outcome of a major medieval power struggle. On his accession to the throne in 1199, King John of England installed his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine (ca. 1122-1204), as domina of the French territory of Poitou and gave her authority in all of his lands—a tacit acknowledgement of her political skill.

Eleanor even managed to expand queenly authority in some ways. She seems to be the first queen of England after the Norman Conquest to have regularly collected the “queen’s gold”, a one-tenth share of some of the legal fines paid to the king. This gave her a valuable (and somewhat independent) source of revenue—and with money comes power. As a more modest example, one contemporary of Matilda of Tuscany’s was a woman named Mahild of Alluyes, domina of a far smaller territory in northern France. She wasn’t a player in papal or imperial politics. Yet as wife and widow, she oversaw the affairs of her vassals and witnessed charters which they drew up in the chapter house of the nearby abbey of Marmoutier, which gave her considerable influence over their lives. And there are many, many more dominae in the sources.

Medieval aristocratic women were sometimes seen as passive by their male contemporaries; those with power who broke this mould were sometimes described in plainly misogynistic terms. But equally, their deeds could be lauded. For example, one of the great chroniclers of the early twelfth century, the Anglo-Norman Orderic Vitalis, wrote that the French noblewoman Isabel of Conches was “lovable and estimable to those around her.” He complimentarily said that she “rode armed as a knight among the knights”, and compared her favourably with Amazon queens.

Matilda of Boulogne (ca. 1105-1152), queen of King Stephen of England, was one of her husband’s most capable partisans during the Anarchy—the period of civil war that tore twelfth-century England apart. Not only did she head the government during her husband’s captivity, but proved herself a capable military commander. She directed troops into battle at the so-called Rout of Winchester and arranged for her husband’s release when he was captured.

A generation or so later, the English countess Petronella of Leicester (ca. 1145-1212) participated alongside her husband in the Revolt of 1173-74; she gave her husband military advice, rode armed onto the battlefield, and was even wearing armour when captured. These actions may not have been normal behaviour for a domina—administration and adjudication were more usual. But they were still within the bounds of possible behaviour for a medieval woman without endangering her status as a “lady.”

The Matildas, Mahild, Eleanor, Isabel, and Petronella: it is hard to imagine any of these dominae as the subject of a Waterhouse painting or the centrepiece of a Disney movie. They weren’t always victorious or virtuous; they could be ambitious and high-handed and hold ideas which most people today would find distasteful. And yet, whether medieval chroniclers approved or disapproved of these women individually, they didn’t think the very fact that they were active, decisive, and opinionated was out of the ordinary. Neither should you.

Nor would the colour of their skin have been thought a defining aspect of their status as a lady. There was certainly prejudice about skin colour in the Middle Ages. The relatively small number of non-white people in northern Europe means that we can’t definitively point to a woman of colour exercising political power there. But things were slightly different in southern Europe, in areas like Iberia—modern Spain and Portugal—which was long home to Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations of multi-ethnic heritage.

While there were religious prohibitions against Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men, there are some scattered examples of intermarriages between dynasties in the early Middle Ages: Muslim women of north African or Arab descent marrying into northern, Christian royal families. For instance, Uriyah, a daughter of the prominent Banū Qasī dynasty, married a son of the king of the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre; Fruela II, king of Asturias, married another Banū Qasī woman called Urraca. Their ancestry doesn’t seem to have posed a barrier.

Western Europeans may have only rarely had direct contact with non-white female rulers further afield—like the powerful Arwa bint Asma, queen of Yemen (r. 1067-1138)—but when they did, it could be in dramatic fashion. Shajar al-Durr, sultana of Egypt (d. 1257), famously captured Louis IX of France during the Seventh Crusade and ransomed him for an eye-wateringly large sum.

While historical examples of women of colour exercising prominent roles in Europe during the Middle Ages are few in number, skin colour didn’t limit the imaginations of white medieval Europeans. Medieval people often had clear anxieties about skin colour and blackness, but despite this racism they could still envision a brown- or black-skinned woman as a member of the upper classes, just as they did the white-skinned Mahild or Isabel.

For example, the early thirteenth-century German epic poem Parzival centres on the eponymous hero and his quest for the Holy Grail. Parzival has a half-brother, the knight Feirefiz, who is mixed-race. His mother, Belacane, is the black queen of the fictional African kingdoms of Zazamanc and Azagouc; the narrative praises her beauty and her regal bearing. As another example, a Middle Dutch poem written about the same time, Morien, recounts the story of the handsome, noble knight Morien, “black of face and of limb,” whose father Sir Aglovale fell in love with his “lady mother,” a Moorish princess.

However, the most vivid example is provided by medieval depictions of the biblical Queen of Sheba. Scholars think the historical Sheba likely lay somewhere in southwestern Arabia; other traditions place the kingdom in east Africa. Regardless of the queen’s historicity, various traditions grew up around her in the Middle Ages. Some of the most popular of these claimed that she had a son by the biblical king Solomon. She frequently appears alongside him in art, in elegantly draped garb as on the late twelfth-century Verdun Altar, or accompanied by courtiers as in an early fourteenth-century German illustrated bible: a beautiful black woman and a regal queen. When you think of a medieval “lady”—you could do worse than to think of her.

All of this should prompt us to look again, to reconsider how racialized Victorian ideals of womanhood still impact us—both in contemporary popular culture and also in our understandings of the medieval past. When we think about the Middle Ages, we should consider the impact of race, and especially whiteness, on how we think about it. That is not necessarily because our medieval forebears did so, but because our nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ones did so very much.

The idea of the “lady” was one of the useful fictions which they and others employed, glorifying white, upper-class womanhood as an apex of western achievement. This helped to make existing racial and imperial hierarchies seem like they had such a long history that they must be innate, biological: a simple fact of life. But it was a fiction, and a harmful one. If we are to better understand the medieval past, it is one we must set aside.”

- Yvonne Seale, “My Fair Lady? How We Think About Medieval Women.”

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Friday 31 January 1840

6 ¾

1

got up by candle light to go to Jackson at 7 and ready then but the carriage not come nor George – R12 ½° at my bedhead and 12 1/3° on the console at 7 a.m. and then beginning to be light and fine morning – waited for George till 7 ½ in vain, and off at 7 ½ taking Gross – returned to desire George to go and wait for me at the Spaskoigate, which  delayed me 5 minutes – chez Jackson at 7 55/.. – not up – waited perhaps 10 minutes – then explained what I wanted – all to be done by noon tomorrow – Jackson very civil – drove to the Spaskoi gate – no George – home at 8 ¾ - George had not been here! – breakfast (having written the above of today) at 9 – Had the courier at 10 – a Russian speaking nothing but Russian! had Mrs. Howard Up – the man has a very good countenance said he had travelled 20 years – had travelled with George – said he knew him – he was a man who drank, and was idle, and would take great advantages – this added to my disappointment at his not arriving at the hour this morning and his inexactness yesterday in not being ready to go to princess Tcherkaskis’ yesterday and not calling us in the morning at Troitsa [Troitza] made me instantly resolve not to take him or his wife but to trust to the courier to trust him entirely and take Gross – what a bouleversement of plans! at 1st meant the courier to provide for A- and me and himself and I would make him a present at the end – then on this upsit of plan said I would give him 2/. a day for nourriture, and a present at the end and he must do the best he could for A- and me and the Russian girl – what a pother! then to go for the podarojna – but 350/. wanted and said I must go to the bank – had had Gross in before Mrs. Howard, and after a short explanation of my displeasure and that it was from the necessity of the case that I took him, it was settled that he should go

with us – to let him have what money he wanted in a/c, and then settle on my return here – valuing the roubles, and making up the equivalent of 4 francs a day – then came George had him in before Mrs. Howard – said his inexactitude so frightened me, that I did not dare take him – nothing else – all at an end for himself and his wife – the man astonished – apparently almost in tears – but said it was all right – he thought he could do better – I said count P- had made the agreement but I was quite satisfied – all I wished was for him to do better – would he stay with us today and tomorrow or the 2 or 3 days we were here – no objection made – so went out with us – out at 11 ½ - to Larnes’ – out – then to Mr. Marcs’ – the head clerk speaking English very well, but long and tiresome enough as to his explanations de trop – however, if I draw upon them, they will pay the draft, and will take care of, and forward letters according to my directions – had best be sent from Hamburg to Odessa or from H- to here and thence to Tiflis – 12 days from here to Hamburg – from H- by here to Tiflis a month – but the post (extra post – quick post) only goes once a week from here to Tiflis (Friday or Saturday) .:. if the letter arrived the day after the departure, would be detained here – but a month would be enough dans tous les cas – I observed it would be better to draw upon Laffitte than Hammersleys – no! if I draw upon Paris, I should have to pay now 117fr. per 100 Rubles tho’ he had calculated that in paying a small sum in Paris from here I ought to calculate 113fr. per 100R. on account of postages etc. – the exchange worse against England last year – was 20/35 and 20/30 per £1 last September – It was one before I had received my 5th draw our letter of credit = £350 at 21/. = 7350/. – 80/. expense = 7270 net had left him once and gone to A- in the carriage for 10 minutes – she was reading in the St. James’s chronicle from 10 to 12 December the death of the King of Denmark on the 3rd December – on leaving Mr. Marc’s drove up to the house and left cards for Mrs. Thal then returned chez Larne – Mr. Frederic speaks not much Russian except for common things – I hardly think he will be of much use to us – Larne to come at 9 a.m. tomorrow to give the Russian girl a lesson – then home – changed my dress (from my merinos to my black silk that I have lately worn) for making calls – nobody at home – left cards for baroness Rosen, princesses Sherbatoff, Arbalinksy, and Annette Galitzin – Madames Apraxin  Bachmatieff her sister, and before these Madame Perfilieff – then to the Gastinoi [Gostiny] Dvor for 1/2a. more cloth – then aux Enfans trouvés – about an hour

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the supereiure would no opinion or advice – quite free to do as I liked – to take the girl or not – if I took her, and she did not suit us, to leave her on our return to give her while in Russian 10/. per month – she is of age, quite free now and always to do as she likes – and go where she likes – and settle where she likes – her papers all en règle – ready to be off any time – home at 5 ¼ - had the girl to do my hair and A- had Gross to do hers – sorry work – just before dressed, countess A.P. came – had her in my room – told her what had passed respecting George and his wife, and paid her 85/. for the casserole (pan) bronz silver, plated inside – had told Larne about Georges’ inexactitude, but did not hint at anything else – led countess A.P. to say that she was told he drank but not so as to get intoxicated she evidently and expressively wondered how we should get on – thinks the girl will be of no use, then ended with la bonne volonté valait beaucoup  - sat with us a while at dinner – (perhaps near ½ hour here) and left us at 7 – then talking a while – A- really takes it all better than I expected – she says she always had fears of George – had Mrs. Howard about provisions – ordered 6 gelinottes – ditto rolls, and 2lbs. best portable soup at 4/. – tea at about near 9 – then wrote all but the first 8 lines of today – then putting away (and taking inventory of) books in boot imperial and looking over linen and turning out bag till now 12 20/.. at which hour R13 ½° on the console and 14 1/3° on my table – fine day – and R-4° outside our dining room window -