Previously: Please accept my application to become a Valkyrie.
1. Like Jane Eyre, my “organ of veneration” is enormous and I would do an excellent job swearing fealty to someone God had rightly set above me in the natural order. This would free me both from the burden of emotional responsibility and decision-making while also unleashing my natural propensity for viciousness towards anyone who has offended the people I love.
2. I am already a landowner, I possess roughly 2400 feet of mostly concrete in the hills of California and will gladly quarter as many of the king’s horses as is physically practical upon my modest estate (I think probably two in the backyard and one in the carport).
3. My hatred for the thrice-damned Merovingians is equalled only by my hatred for paintings that demonstrate an accurate use of perspective, and the market economy.
4. I would have no problem allowing peasants use some of my property to set their pigs a-grazing on, as long as I could keep one out of every ten or so pigs.
5. I oppose both the spread of guilds and the Dutch.
6. I am prepared already to join either the noblesse d’épée or the noblesse de robe, as I already own both a pretty fair fencing épée and a wizard’s robe that I got off the Internet.
7. I know a reasonable amount of Latin (mostly from the Wiccan scenes on Buffy, studying Latin roots in high school English, and a brief fascination with High Anglicanism during a semester at Oxford); certainly enough to get through an hommage service.
8. I would very much enjoy escaping a life of physical labor and periodic famines.
9. I am willing to oppose social mobility in all forms, excepting my own, and even then only in an upwardly direction.
10. I rode English-style for a few years during junior high and have a fairly steady seat, so I would stand a reasonable chance of making it through a calvalry charge.
11. I’m happy to invade Scotland or give away my sons to the Scots, or whatever.
12. My greatest fears are Lutherans, mercantilism, and a united France.
Tags: feudalism, history, humor, please consider my application, vassalage
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Number 12, you and me both sister.
You’re right to fear the Lutherans.
I am uncertain as to what Miss Eyre meant by “organ of veneration”, but as Lady of the Manor, I would be sure all my groomsmen had them in generous proportions.
Phrenology reference. It confused me for years.
The fact that Jane Eyre thinks palm reading is ridiculous but that phrenology makes total sense is one of my favorite things about her.
Oh, fun!
Somewhat related, I remember getting my hands on 19th century physiognomy book and discovering that I was destined for a life of criminality and lewdness based on my looks. That was great.
According to Jerome Cardano’s Metoposcopia, a system of reading forehead wrinkles and their astrological correspondences, my forehead is governed by the conflicting influences of Mercury and Venus; which means that I am unlucky in marriage and addicted to carnal lusts. Damn, damn this contrary, lascivious forehead of mine.
Nothing can stop the spread of the Dutch!
DO YOU HEAR? NOTHING!
I make it my personal mission to spread myself everywhere
They’re goddamn everywhere. I leave Holland, and there they are, eating drop. I was at a drive-through theater in Eastham, Massachusetts last summer, and guess who were next to us? Two Dutch families.
When I went to Crete, the most popular restaurant was Frite Van Peet (“The Fries of Pete”, I think?) which is a fast-food restaurant that was every night frequented with just hordes of them.
Are you sure they weren’t Belgian? They were probably Belgian.
THEY WERE DUTCH.
Friet Van Piet definitely sounds like something that would attract more Dutch people than Belgians
“There are only two things I hate in this world: people who are intolerant of other peoples’ cultures, and the Dutch.”
#swag
You had me at cheetah-cloak-with-tail. Damn gurl.
But what of the Fuggers, Woman? WHAT OF THE FUGGERS?
This is both delightful and giving me random flashbacks to my AP European History exam, which I took just after the Diet of Worms.
I am Lutheran and the idea that Mallory Ortberg fears me is astonishing, but also a little gratifying.
*menacingly brandishes hotdish*
*and a Small Catechism*
*while humming A Mighty Fortress*
*files in, sits in the back*
Uff da.
…..and now I have A Mighty Fortress stuck in my head. And not the actual melody, but the wandering, tuneless zombie murmur as rendered by my childhood congregation.
*combs blonde hair calmly from a modest ranch home in western Michigan*
*I bought the comb on sale*
Heyo! It’s always exciting to find some Lutherans.
I would never been publicly or privately seen with my hair uncovered.
As convincing as I found the other entries in this series, I cannot help but suspect that this enthusiasm for vassalage would evaporate instantly the first time that some royal knob with a lute and a stupid hat rode up and uttered the phrase: “Hail, vassal!”
When I was in the eighth grade my history teacher made me reenact an oath of fealty with him as the vassal and it embarrassed me so much that I hated both him and his class for the rest of the year. FUCK YOU MR. JEFFRIES
A guy named “Jeffries” would never have gotten away with that in the post-Game of Thrones era.
For our unit on feudalism when I was in 7th grade, each group of four desks was a “manor,” and each of us was either the lord, knight, peasant, or monk. I got to be the lord of my group because I got the highest grade on the previous test HA ha, it was so great. I was a benevolent lord.
Oh man, that’s AWFUL. I feel like kids are actually acutely aware of power dynamics (or at least I was), and power-authority hijinks made me deeply uncomfortable when I was in the middle of them. (Guess which child refused to kneel down to be “knighted” after she snagged the ring on the “jousting” carousel at the Renn Faire?)
I am PROFOUNDLY skeptical of #11. Nobody is that happy to interact with the Scots.
Not even the Scots.
YE’VE JIST MADE AN ENEMY FIR LIFE, SKINNER.
CRIVENS.
Especially not the Scots.
Saith Samuel Johnson: The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
Well, maybe the Dutch.
I am sitting here just hating, hating on the Merovingians. All of ’em.
Thus was born The Toast’s exciting new literary venture, Hot Cross Buns, devoted entirely to historical fiction of the Medieval period.
Has Her Ladyship heard aught of the dire cavalcade of Herodias, a fearsome vision of airy spirits lately espied by a wise woman of good character? Travelers have also heard strange moanings from the fairy mound north of Gallows’ Cross. Such wonders oft foretell the Plague, or else a failure of the turnip crop. Also a large toad did shew bleeding wounds like to those of Christ, and promised many signs and dancing manias come Roodmas. I worry that this moldy rye bodes ill.
I made two comments and neither have appeared. I’m not sure if there was a technical problem or if I was judged and found wanting.