"Go!"

Oliver Cromwell:

In the name of God, go!
-copied from here.

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
-copied from here.

"'Go!' Barholm shouted. 'You have sat here far too long for any good you might be doing; in the name of the Spirit, go!'"
-The Forge, CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 192.

Yet another historical allusion. In the Cromwellian case, I expect that the Time Patrol would be on hand to ensure that the Dissolution of the Long Parliament occurs on schedule in 1653.

Their Supremacies

See Opening Sentences, and its link to "Grandiose Titles," also Roidhun.

Here is another title in similar vein:

"...His Supremacy, Viceregent of the Spirit of Man of the Stars, Supreme Autocrat, Legitimate Governor, Beloved of the Legislative Council, of the Clerett Dynasty the First."
-The Forge, CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 190.

We notice a church-state unity: the Autocrat also represents the Spirit. Historically, the Japanese Emperor is the highest authority in Shinto. The Queen of England is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Pope and the Dalai Lama are heads of states.

The Roidhun of Merseia is also boosted as "his Supremacy." See here.

I prefer a milieu in which we address each other as "brother/sister" or "Comrade" and mean it but deeds can contradict words.

(Recent posts have visited some very strange places.)

In Constantinople And East Residence

In 325 Constantinople, modern day Istanbul, was seething with discussion. The buzz in the city was not about a sports team or about an election. People were talking about the doctrine of the Trinity. One church leader said, if in this city you ask someone for change, he will discuss with you whether God the Son is begotten or unbegotten. If you ask about the quality of the bread, you will receive the answer that ‘God the Father is greater, God the Son is less. . .
"So Constantinople called a council of the Church..."
-copied from here.

"Raj remembered an ancient chronicle he had read, of a previous synod: a Sysup from the provinces had said, In East Residence, if you ask a baker for bread he will tell you that the Spirit proceeds from the Stars; if you inquire of the bath attendant whether the water is hot, she will reply that the Spirit proceeds from the Man of the Stars."
-SM Stirling and David Drake, The Forge IN Stirling and Drake, Warlord (Riverdale, NY, 2003), pp. 1-305 AT CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 187.

Constantinople (scroll down) is nothing if not important. And it turns out to be the source of this passage in The Forge.

Economic Development II

See Economic Development.

The Forge, CHAPTER TEN.

Raj had thought that the only ways to get rich were to inherit or to steal. Next, we learn that he had seen mercantilism only as detrimental:

"To yeoman and squire alike, it was a reversal of the natural order of things for mercantile skills to work for their benefit." (p. 143)

An entrepreneur has just advised them on how much profit they can make from a captured town.

In medieval Europe, the lending of money at interest was officially regarded as sinful, presumably because it challenged the economic might of feudal landholders who included bishops? Money is a more dynamic means of exchange but our next advance has to be to the technological production of abundant wealth, making money redundant. In the intermediate period, between land-based wealth and abundant wealth, we are able to enjoy the antics and adventures of master merchants like Nicholas van Rijn.

Obscure Connections

Dornford Yates, whom I am concurrently reading, knew the fortune teller, Cheiro, who interviewed, among many others, Mark Twain and Charles Stewart Parnell.

Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court is a precursor of Poul Anderson's "The Man Who Came Early" and also of his Time Patrol series whereas Parnell, (scroll down) like Churchill, was a guest in the Old Phoenix, the inn between the worlds, in Anderson's "Losers' Night."

Make of that what you will.

Like Chicken

The Forge, CHAPTER TEN., p. 152.

SM Stirling surpasses Poul Anderson in realistic alternative history fiction and in descriptions of food. Thus, we vicariously enjoy many exotic meals - including a large silver dish of roasted sauroids on boiled rice and dates. Dates?

The sauroids:

are quasireptiles;
live in salt marsh;
eat rushes and grubs;
have white, salty flesh;
taste very like chicken.

Raj rips and eats a six-inch drumstick. We feel and taste this fictional future.

(Chicken is a versatile food source because it contravenes no taboos and vegetarians, although not Vegans, can eat the eggs.)

Holy City

See also here.

The Forge, CHAPTER NINE.

Catholicism, Islam and Sikhism survive into the future of Poul Anderson's Technic History. Several characters are Catholics. We see one Sikh and a couple of guys with Muslim names (here and here).

SM Stirling and David Drake tell us more about Islam in their The General series:

"His beard was dyed green, sign of one who had made the pilgrimage to the Holy City of Sinar; where the first ships from Old Earth had landed, bearing a fragment of the Ka'bah from the ruins of burning Mecca." (p. 146)

(Next, this pilgrim is subjected to sickening violence, which I will not repeat here.)

How might a religious tradition be maintained across an interstellar distance? Stirling and Drake present one credible answer.

(This might be an appropriate place for a story about the Hajj, the Pilgrimage to Mecca. A man had saved the money for the journey but, just before he was due to depart, his friend needed an expensive operation so instead he paid for the operation and was unable to go on pilgrimage. When his friends returned, they congratulated him on making such a good pilgrimage and when he said, "But I was never there!," they replied, "While we were in Mecca, we saw you there many times.")

Looting And Rape

The Forge, CHAPTER NINE.

SM Stirling's and David Drake's Raj Whitehall has reason to believe that he is an Avatar of the Spirit. However, his men, with his approval, loot, destroy and rape in a captured town. His "Spirit" and my Buddha within have parted company.

Which is preferable: that human beings remain confined to a single planet or that they commit atrocities on many planets? CS Lewis thought that even the first Moon landing would be a desecration (see here) whereas I agree with Poul Anderson that a multiplicity of extraterrestrial, then extra-solar, colonies would facilitate human diversity.

High technology should make war, and certainly looting, redundant. However, one scenario imagined by Anderson, and also by Stirling & Drake, is the spread of humanity to many planets followed by the loss of technology. In those hypothetical futures, there will be wars accompanied by looting and rape.

Sigurd And Saint Peter

Manson Everard of the Time Patrol says:

"'...I've seen Wagner's Ring operas. And when I had a mission once in Scandinavia, toward the close of the viking period, I heard a yarn about Sigurd, who killed the dragon and woke the Valkyrie and afterward mucked everything up.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465 AT 1980, p. 356.

That Scandinavian mission occurs between installments of the Time Patrol series.

Inside the church is a Norse hog-back stone from around 1000AD, which would originally have been a grave cover.
-copied from here.

The stone has been moved into the church to protect it from weathering. We saw it today. It has:

Sigurd carved on one side and Sigmund attacked by wolves on the other;
two symbols, a fish and a shamrock-like shape, which might be Christian.

I am uninspired blog-wise today but here is a connection between a Poul Anderson text and our local environment.

See also:

St Patrick
Other Historical Connections

There is more about the hog-back stone here and here. 

Like Van Rijn

Dornford Yates's Sir Andrew Plague is like Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn in some respects although not in others:

"The doctor came and was reviled. Finding [Sir Andrew's] knee strained, he prescribed a recumbent position for seven days, and was instantly desired to go to hell for seven years. As he left the room a glass was thrown at him.
"At last dinner was served."
-Dornford Yates, Valerie French (London, 1923), CHAPTER VIII, p. 220.

Differences: Sir Andrew is an English lawyer and a misogynist - although he eventually marries.