The Pied Piper of Hamelin is possibly based on a true story. On the door of a house in the town an inscription reads, “A.D. 1284 on the 26th of June, the day of St John and St Paul, 130 children born in Hamelin were led out of the town by a piper wearing multicoloured clothes. Admittedly the house is dated to 1602 but the inscription may refer to folk history remembered in the town. There is also an entry in Hamelin’s town records, from 1384, which records, “It is 100 years since our children left.” Although I am neither after your rats nor your children, I am looking for more followers. As you all know fb changes the way it operates in subtle ways. It seems that my page followers/likes have been stuck for some time. FB tells me x number of people have followed this month but the total never varies. Why should you care about that?Well if you like to see my posts sometimes then they have to work with the algorithms. I’ve noticed two things - vast majority of the ‘likes’ I get are from people who do not follow/like this page. Also the numbers have gone down lately. Now maybe I have become inherently less interesting (I’ll try to correct that) but I think it is because I need more of you to ‘like/follow’ the page as well as just like individual posts. The potential benefit to you is that IF I perceive this page is getting a wider reach, then it becomes more worthwhile for me to put time and effort into creating posts. BTW I can’t tell whether you see the option to ‘Like’ or to ‘Follow’ ? However I believe they have the same effect. So Iam just over 60 followers short of crocking the 21,000 followers threshold. Do you think you could help me cross that line by the weekend? Thanks for your support. ... See MoreSee Less
Hopefully many of you will have seen my recent posts promoting my new films on History Hit about duelling (Part 2 out soon). Hopefully many of you will have watched Part One? If not – do take a look (link in previous post). For me, one of the more interesting sequences in the first film was visiting The College of Arms in London. This is the home of the heralds and where grants of arms are made. Having a coat of arms was a defining element in identifying who was a gentleman. Today we may use the term 'gentleman' loosely to describe someone who behaves in a certain way but it was once a more precise term with legal status. Only a gentleman could challenge another gentleman to a duel.In the 17th century duelling was so prevalent in Britain that The Court of Chivalry was established at The College of Arms to rule on disputes that might otherwise lead to a duel. Striking a fellow gentleman or calling him a liar were definitely crossing the line. That is why in the British House of Commons it is against the rules for a Member of Parliament to accuse another of lying. It once guaranteed a duel.At the College of Arms there are still stacks of wonderful, dusty court records ruling on instances of ‘words provocative of a duel’. The remedy was for the Court to rule that the person saying such words should offer a public apology and so avoid the necessity of a duel. Professor Richard Cust has made a study of the records , which we look at in the film, quoting ‘words provocative of a duel’ such as an instance of someone calling another ‘The squirt of a kite and spawne of a crablowse’It can be fun to have a job where one can go to posh places and say rude things. Here are a few more that didn’t make it into the film but which are genuine quotes from the records of the Court of Chivalry – the type of insults that actually provoked duels.‘That I was a base fellow and a bastardly rogue, and a bastardly shitt, and begot by a cripple of some divell’.‘You lie, kisse my arse thou art a baldpated knave and a cheating rogue’.‘My father was no pisse pot maker’.‘I will make a hole through the ceiling of your house and shite downe upon your heads’.‘You lie in your throat, I care no more for you than a filthy thing. You forswear yourself as fast as a dogg will trott and that any man may hire ye to forsweare thyself for 2 pence’.‘A sharke and a cheater and a bugbeare and had as little reason in me as a dogg and did cheat the towne and fedd my fatt guts with wine and tobacco’. ‘Fitter to be a dogg keeper than a minister’. ‘A durty slut, stinking drab and idle huswife, kisse my hoggs arse’.We worry, or at least I do, about the incivility and the inflammatory nature of our public discourse. However it would seem that, by 17th century standards, we are a relatively restrained (or at least unimaginative) society. ... See MoreSee Less
