So...where are we now? Or rather, when are we?
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So...where are we now? Or rather, when are we?
Last edited by TimWalker; 04-08-2013 at 02:04 PM.
Your "economic awakening" would also cover the romantic age (and the transcendentalists), which is more in keeping with the nature of "awakenings."
I can at least agree that the awakening was later half first century as opposed to first half.
Also a 19th century biggie that often is left out because he's boring and oft translated from german is Max Weber, who created the concept of our modern bureaurocracy, and also developed such ideas as the cult of personality, and red tape. Most people, to some degree or another, speak Weber, but never know they're doing it.
Not awakening stuff.Originally Posted by Kepi
What the 60s is part of is a mega-awakening cycle, acc. to mikebert. so it would be the crisis turning of a mega-awakening; that's how I read it.
It's 400 years not 500, there is no "0th" century. But yeah there's hiccup, but that's when the things happened.
Yes it does.
Actually "awakening" as in the turning, is short for spiritual awakening.
The mega-awakening is more of a cultural awakening that often has a religous nature, but does not have to. For example, the philosophical awakening did not have a large religious or spiritual component.
I use the "mega" prefix to refer to the longer cycle length not to an intensification of an ordinary turning. The fact that the cycle length is about three saeculae, not four shows that it is not some larger version of the S&H saeculum.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-08-2013 at 09:37 PM.
If the three-saecula pattern holds, the next mega-awakening should be centered on the next Awakening around the middle of this century. If it's a three century pattern then not for a long time.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-08-2013 at 08:22 PM.
Actually I thought explicitly of Weber as providing a possible theme for how the Reformation led to the Industrial Revolution. Add to this my mendicant theme of how a response to the inauthencity of the 12th century church led to the Reformation and the theme of how Cluny led to a wealthy, overly secular, “inauthentic church” and you get the outlines of a nine saecula/36 turning story of how we got from the Dark Ages to modernity.
I should stress that the theme I am talking about is just one strand in a braid that is history.
There is also an economic theme of sucessive "new economies" washing over the nations of Western Europe from late medieval times on. Here the story is of the monarch's need for revenue to finance wars. Thus we see Edward III increasingly rely on trade to provide income and his cultivation of special relations with merchants in this pursuit. His great-grandson Prince Henry the Navigator goes a step further actively sponsoring new economic development. By assinging status to merchants whose activities benefit the crown, the impetus for capitalism was created.
And there is the standard political history story of the type most history books (and Shakespeare's history plays cover). And the story told by developments in art, music, philosophy, science and literature.
All these stories have players that might be characterized by archetype.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-08-2013 at 09:58 PM.
There are no mega-turnings in this three-century cycle. Since each mega-awakening is roughly a century long there is only room for three such periods, not four.
the Green;465746
There is not necessarily any "mega-crisis" sandwiched between the mega-awakenings. I used the term mega-awakening because these periods tend to
be centered on an awakening turning and because they represent the birth or ”waking” of a new thematic element in the story of how we got to where we are.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-08-2013 at 09:40 PM.
Right, right, and clearly with 3 centuries of history, you're probably full up on a culture's short term memory capacity if you will. You get 3 centuries deep and while certain traditions are stored in a long term memory, most of the time we're not going to say "oh man, we've really taken a wrong turn by about a thousand years, let's go back and see what we could have chosen over the Franciscans!" It's easier to just produce a new set of ideas.
I see, that makes sense (I think).
I don't follow the difference between a 3-saecula pattern and a three-century pattern. You mean in modern times that you say a mega-saeculum is about 250 years, but it could go back to the ancient 300 years?
I think in the light of what I have pointed out, that such a three-century pattern may only apply to ancient and medieval times, when there are only civilization phases and no generational cycles. They may still happen in modern times, theoretically, but then it could be confusing, because the 4-turning, 80-year generational cycles definitely apply (I would still accept the S&H model for modern times).
No crisis in your mega-saecula? That seems rather rose-colored in the light of history!
Last edited by Eric the Green; 04-08-2013 at 11:57 PM.
There is also the double rhythm of the saeculum.
That may be what is going on, I have no ideas as to mechanism. Right now it’s simply a framework on which to work out saeculae.
Different themes tell different stories. For example, Weber’s idea of the Protestant work ethic tells a story about the rise of capitalism that fits into the theme of the mega-awakening. The cyclical economic story I tell in The Kondratiev Cycle and which appears in bits in the document I sent you contains another story of the rise of capitalism. Both stories are about something real that happened: the rise of capitalism. Both are incomplete, they tell only part of the story.
I define capitalism as an economic system in which (1) capital is owned by people who engage in market exchange in order to grow their capital (wealth) and (2) at least some of these people, called capitalists, possess a growth ethic that propels them to accumulate capital beyond what they could ever spend on consumption.
Lots of pre-modern economies featured merchants who did #1. They did not become capitalist until they gained #2. Acquisition of #2 is then the key feature that converts a pre-capitalist economy featuring private capital ownership and market exchange into a capitalist one.
For Weber #2 comes from a new morals regime coming from the Protestant mega-awakening. The main characters in this story are some of the same key players in the mega-awakening theme, making Weber a good source for a mega-awakening story for the period between the 16th and 19th century mega-awakenings.
In the economic cycle story, key players are west European monarchs, Genoese bankers and merchants and men on the make like Columbus, de Gama, Cortez, and Drake. Calvin is entirely off-stage.
Key players in both stories would be the protagonists in the story of the rise of the Netherlands.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-09-2013 at 08:53 AM.
It depends on what the time constant for the process is. If it is driven by saecula, then the cycle length in years would be shorter because saecula are shorter. If it is driven by time, then the cycle length in years would likely be about the same.
It is not a saeculum, it is simply a way to divide history into sections associated with a story that begins with one mega-awakening and ends at the next one. By using a multi-saeculum story you ensure than the saecula flow into each other smoothly.No crisis in your mega-saecula? That seems rather rose-colored in the light of history!
For example, Chas asserts that the early 13th century and 14th centuries are clearly Crisis turnings and that the latter portion of the 14th century looks like an Awakening, which certainly is consistent with the first two assignments. But S&H already identified 1435 as the beginning of an Unraveling, which pretty much means if the saeculum extends before 1435, then there must be an awakening that ended in 1435. If it’s about 26 years long like the rest of the S&H turnings, then this Awakening would have begun around 1409. But Chas's main Awakening figure John Wycliffe was active about 35-40 years before 1409 making two Awakenings one half-saeculum apart, which doesn't align.
By having a single story cover the whole period from 1200 to 1500, the turnings you come up with must naturally fit and you avoid this problem. Of course different stories might give different saecula, in which case you either conclude that the saeculum doesn’t exist or that the story is mostly wrong.
More than a decade ago, I told an economic story for the period from the late 12th century to the early 19th century. The story was largely told in numerical data series than can be analyzed using a variety of methods. The output of the analysis was a two stroke cycle which defines alternate higher stress periods (corresponding to Awakening or Crisis turnings) and lower-stress periods (corresponding to Unraveling and High turnings). I then categorized the high stress periods into periods of high and low levels of spiritual/religious activity and called the former Awakenings and the latter Crises. This “empirical cycle” aligned with a saeculum comprised of the S&H saeculum and McGuiness saeculum of the 12th through the early 19th century in a highly statistically significant fashion. I thought I had validated the S&H saeculum.
After a number of heated discussions with John Xenakis, I completely overhauled my work and started over from scratch with carefully selected and cited academic sources. My spiritual event data base fell apart, and would have to be rebuilt. But the database that helped define the stress cycle was also problematic. When I redid it, the statistical significance disappeared. This means either there is no saeculum or that the economic story is not the whole picture.
Since I know economics is not the whole story, I think it best to explore this option. If another story was analyzed and compared and found to be consistent with the stress story, then the two stories could be combined to a larger story giving more points of comparison and perhaps reaching statistically significant alignment with some existing saeculum scheme. At this point we would have a validated saeculum (i.e. establish a good scientific case that is real).
In other words we would be discussing social science.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-09-2013 at 09:56 AM.
Mike have you ever seen/read the play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Moliere?
It's about a bourgeois merchant who starts taking lessons and buying art and such in attempting to be a gentleman. It's a funny comedy and would fall right on the border between the developing capitalist mindset.
~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 04-09-2013 at 01:34 PM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
No I haven't, but I read the synopsis. It illustrates one aspect of the economic theme, the resistance of the French aristocracy to encroachment by wealthy commoners. This goes hand in hand with French resistance to the idea that infantry commoners could be as good on the battlefield as French knights. After the battle of the spurs, when town militia defeated the flower of French knighthood, after Crecy when English commoners with longbows soundly defeated French knights and finally at Agincourt when the same happened, the French still did not catch a clue on the new order that was coming.
What I don't have is examples of how English nobles received commoners who entered their ranks. Any English plays or literature you know that deals with this issue? That video you posted mentioned one guy who got inducted into the Order of the Garter who was not highborn, but I don't know if he was a noble or not. I suspect he was of the minor nobility.
My conjecture is that by granting aristocratic status to economic elites, certain kings were able to encourage more taxable trade and so augment their military power. This in turn created a cultural impetus amongst the merchant class to endlessly accumulate capital, transforming them into capitalists. That England was able to do this while France did not explains why English, despite being much smaller was eventually able to dominate France in the 18th century and why the Industrial Revolution started in England and not France.
Even if correct, this would only be part of the story of the rise of capitalism, but it would be one of the strands in the braid of history and the saeculum derived from it could well reflect the saeculum for the whole braid.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-09-2013 at 09:03 PM.
English literature deals with the subject variantly across time periods, but is almost universal in its prescription. Marriage & the Military. Marriage is the answer for women and Military for the men.
Jane Austen's works for example is often used as an example of the English quote response unquote to the French Revolution--instead of beheading their aristocracy they simply quote intermarried unquote with them instead. But this is not always the case even within Austen. Sure one could make the argument that in Pride and Prejudice or Northanger Abbey that this is the case (both early works of Austen), but Emma portrays everyone happily marrying within their social class--though Emma (who is a higher noblewoman than Austen normally portrays) does think match-making outside of social class as a distinct possibility as she makes such a match in her head a few times to her particular friend Harriet Smith who is the illegitimate child of nobody knows who. But then again she has romantic notions that Harriet is really the illegitimate child of an aristocrat--when the truth isn't so easy. Both Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park portray lesser wealthy relatives of lower nobility marrying back up the financial scale so I'll dismiss any connections there.
Pride and Prejudice exists in a world where Darcy can be friends with Bingley--where a lower nobleman can be friends with the son of a wealthy guy whose fortune comes from a business that I can't seem to recall at the moment. In fact they treat one another as equals, well Darcy tends to take the attitude that he has to shelter and look out for Bingley as he has a naive disposition--but there's nothing noted about either of his sisters having pretentious airs as though they were born to nobility (when their fortune really comes from a business--in fact that's part of the irony that Austen employs the wealthy non-aristocratic act more aristocratic than the actual aristocrats).
Northanger Abbey depicts how down-on-their-luck lower nobles who've squandered their wealth away, are now looking to make mercenary marriages for their children to anyone with money and fortunes irregardless of social rank (as well as satirize Gothic Romance novels).
Persuasion (Austen's final completed novel) though is the best novel if you want to look at a clear story example of the "rising middle class" that intermarries with the aristocracy. However having said all of this, even in all these cases the aristocracy is typically lower aristocracy (Baronets and such) and the "Bourgeois" characters typically children of the clergy or small landowners who have to find their own way through the world through marriage.
Thackery's Vanity Fair also shows a similar such rise in status with Becky Sharp--and it's set in the same era as Austen.
C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series also portrays a similar kind of "rise" in our titled protagonist via the Navy, and again in the same time period as Austen.
If you look earlier at 18th Century English literature, one notices a strong sense of English nobility that isn't afraid to intermix with the lower classes when it feels like it. In fact it's rather bawdy about how it goes about satisfying its pleasures and spending its money. Northanger Abbey makes mention of this time period with the paraphrased quote "in my father's youth the men would be drunk out of their gourds and the women would've been losing fortunes at gambling tables". You can really see the 18th Century as one long bawdy romp through Merry England that starts with the perversion of the Restoration in the late 1600s, gets cleaned up by the Sentimentalists early in the early part of the 18th Century, and in the latter half intensifies by pulling back the "cleaned up" atmosphere, and climaxes with a kind of fusion of the cleaned up and perverted that is the Regency period going into the early 19th Century--eventually culminating in a complete overthrow of that sentiment by the Victorians. As such, class distinctions get thrown about and mixed up as everyone just pleasures one another.Sure the French have as equally a bawdy time (Dangerous Liaisons) but it's more restricted to one social class while the English literature depicts it as being across all social classes.
Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor could be stated to be the first English play about quote middle class unquote characters. In fact it talks about how the "middle class" English have class prejudices against both the lower and the higher classes. So The Merry Wives of Windsor might be a good place to start for England.
I know I tried to use this example earlier, but Elizabeth Woodville who married Edward IV was considered the "commoner Queen" at the time (which meant she wasn't of royal blood--and as such she was accused of using witchcraft to ensnare Edward). She was from a lower ranking nobility that came to benefit from the rise of the Tudor dynasty in all actuality. But this intermarrying was something that the rest of Europe wasn't doing.
All of this paints a society more at ease with the slight "intermingling" of social classes to ease social tensions--that its answer isn't to fight the establishment but simply marry into it and emulate it. The very things Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme thinks of as ghastly, the English see as acceptable. But then again the English have a more fluid social class system than the French do. The French have a class for nearly every possible distinction (almost as rigid as the Spanish and Portuguese, but not as much). In my mind it makes sense that the British aristocracy learned that if they were to survive (especially after the English Civil War) they'd have to be flexible and open to change. Also they realized that in order to fund their lavish lifestyles they'd have to marry for money. And when you have a "open to marriage" aristocracy "as long as you have the cash" then one could say that that feeds into each other. Especially in Jane Austen's time period. However the standard gets set much earlier in the Late Medieval period I'd reckon as you have the example of Elizabeth Woodville breaking barriers where other European monarchs didn't do that as much.
~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 04-09-2013 at 11:28 PM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
Thanks. This is very interesting. It looks to me that it is not inconsistent with the conjecture that the English were able to find a place for rich commoners within their elite than the French did not and that this might have aided the devleopment of capitalism there.
Below is the "turning story" told by the Kondratiev economic cycles. The output from the economic analysis is alternating period of high and low economic stress. In the table the columns labeled period and stress show alternating periods of high and low economic stress. During the period leading up to the population/price peak in the early 14th century the population stress is define by the average price level relative to the trend over a moving 25 year period. Periods of high relative prices imply food shortages that mean hunger, i.e. bad times. The period in between the high stress periods are labeled low stress.
After the black death, population levels were reduced so much that price stress in this sense was no longer an issue. What now constituted stress was periods when real wages fell, which was mostly during period of rising prices (the Kondratiev upwaves). So now the high stress periods are the rising part of the K-wave and the low stress periods are the falling part of the K-wave.
Also shown in the table are the Dave McGuinness turnings for the pre-1435 period and the S&H turnings for the post-1435 period. A reasonable good correspondence can be seen.
Period Stress DMMcG-S&H Turning Period Stress DMMcG-S&H Turning 1176-1201 Low 1174-1204 High 1392-1435 High 1406-1435 Awake 1202-1227 High 1204-1230 Awake 1435-1464 Low 1435-1459 Unravel 1228-1255 Low 1230-1254 Unravel 1464-1490 High 1459-1487 Crisis 1256-1281 High 1254-1282 Crisis 1490-1519 Low 1487-1517 High 1282-1307 Low 1282-1305 High 1519-1554 High 1517-1542 Awake 1308-1330 High 1305-1328 Awake 1554-1581 Low 1542-1569 Unravel 1330-1354 Low 1328-1348 Unravel 1581-1598 High 1569-1594 Crisis 1354-1377 High 1348-1378 Crisis 1598-1625 Low 1594-1621 High 1377-1392 Low 1378-1406 High 1625-1657 High 1621-1649 Awake
This table is one way to look at the economic story.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-21-2013 at 02:58 PM.
The table below shows estimated English government revenues in the late Medieval period (1000's of pounds). This table provides another way to look at Chas's story of the Edwards. Chas sees Edward II’s reign as a crisis because of his general ineffectiveness against the Scots. Note how revenue craters after the Constitution crisis of 1297 triggered by Edward I’s unpopular tax policies that lead to several decades of tax restraint. Edward II had tiny revenues to work with thanks to Edward I’s taxation overreach. This can give some perspective to Edward II’s inability to deal decisively with the Scots, which leads to Chas’s perception of this period as a troubled time. I note that this period was also a high economic stress period, implying either a Crisis or Awakening turning. So Chas’s assignment of Crisis is consistent with the economic story. Of course McGuiness’s assignment of the same period as an Awakening is also consistent with the economic story because Awakening are also social moments associated with high economic stress.
Period Revenue Real Period Revenue Real 1280-1289 44 46 1391-1400 128 125 1290-1297 193 185 1401-1410 112 107 1298-1309 84 80 1411-1420 139 132 1310-1320 91 69 1421-1430 99 99 1321-1330 66 54 1431-1440 115 107 1331-1340 173 186 1441-1450 94 101 1341-1350 265 284 1451-1460 46 49 1351-1360 286 231 1461-1470 45 46 1361-1370 119 87 1471-1480 31 34 1371-1380 198 174 1481-1485 38 32 1381-1390 130 127 1486-1490 52 53
Take a look at the huge revenues Edward III had to work with in the 1340’s, thanks in part to a huge boom in wool exports (and innovative tax policies by Edward’s excellent finance minister). It would not be until the time of the Armada that an English king would have the wherewithal Edward had at that time. So Edward’s success might not be so surprising, expect of course military competence is required as well, which Edward and his son had in spades. Chas sees the early part of Edward III’s reign as a High because of Edward’s effectiveness. The stress level was low at this time, so that implies a non social moment, consistent with either Chas’s designation as a High or McGuiness view of it as an Unraveling.
Economic stress rose with the coming of the Plague, and I would imagine stress of all kinds. Chas does not have a reading on the turning environment here, but the economic story says either a crisis or awakening began around the time of the plague. McGuinness has a Crisis over 1348-1378.
The tax table shows Edward III’s real revenues starting to sag in the 1360’s, and the war temporarily halted. When it resumed it did not go so well for the English. In 1377 in an effort to extract more revenue a poll tax was implemented. In its 1380 manifestation it was applied to all men and women aged 15 and up. In one documented case, a teenage girl who claimed to be 14 was subjected to a strip search to prove she was at least 15 which led to a storm of local protest. (This region was one of the places the Peasants Revolt got started in the following year). How do you prove age? The documents are not explicit but my guess is the officials administered a “virginity” test by raping her and seeing if they drew blood. After the Peasants Revolt this universal poll tax was rescinded and there was no more violence. Revenues fell dramatically but real revenues did not as much thanks to falling prices. A low stress period had been entered after 1370 and the 1380 overreach did not have the lasting fiscal consequences of the 1297 overreach. Nevertheless the revenues available for the Caroline War (1369-1389) were much less than those for the Edwardian phase (1337-1360) and Richard was less successful. I note that both Richard II and his great grandfather were deposed, probably because policy by their predecessors put them in a bind that prevented that from having an early success that provides legitimacy. Although plenty went wrong in the latter parts of both Edward I and Edward III’s reigns, both had enjoyed success earlier and so had gained this legitimacy.
What events in the years 1254-1282 serve to define it as a "crisis"?
For England, there are three major issues (bold indicated events in the proposed 4T)
First is finance, two-decade spiral into civil war over tax policy
1242 Monfort questions Henry's finances, start of buildup to Civil War
1254 Parliament summoned to discussion of finances
1258 Oxford Parliament, Henry agrees to committee to oversea state finance
1260 Committee disbands after failing to reach agreement
1261 Henry attempts to re-assert absolute power
1263 Fighting breaks out
1263-65 Second Baron's war
1265 War end with death of Montfort, Ordinary People's Parliament called to discuss finance
Second is the Welsh issue, Wales becomes a de facto part of Britain.
1267 Treaty of Shrewbury acknowledges Welsh Prince legitimacy in exchange for payments
1275 Prince of Wales reneges on payments
1276 First Welsh War
1282 Second Welsh War, Welsh prince killed
1294 Welsh rebellion until 1295
1301 Edward II is first English heir to be made Prince of Wales
The third is English anti-Semitism. For a long time the English monarchs raised money by taxing Jewish businessmen in exchange for protection. As anti-Jewish sentiment rose, the government gradually withdrew protection and introduced increasingly repressive measures before finally expelling them.
1253 Jews forbidden to live in English towns w/o Jewish communities
1255 100 Jews killed after Christian boy dies after accidentally falling into a cesspool in a Jewish settlement
1269 Jews persecuted
1275 Jews forbidden to lend at interest
1278 Jews executed for lending
1290 Edward I expells Jews
In the next turning (putative High) there is the Scottish affair, and the Wallace revolt depected in the film Braveheart. The issue is unresolved. It will flare up in the next turning (putative Awakening) with a great Scottish victory at Bannockburn in 1314.
1286 Scottish King Alexander III dies, Edward I arranges marriage between Alexander's grandaughter & his son, girl dies before wedding
1292 Edward chooses John Bailol to be King of Scots
1296 Edward invades Scotland, defeats John
1297 William Wallace revolts against English rule
1300 Edward campaigns in Scotland, Scots practice scorched earth tactics, treaty signed in 1302
1303 Wallace renews revolt
1305 Wallace captured and executed
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-10-2013 at 04:02 PM.
To me, the act of overthrowing a king is not something that would happen in a High or an Unraveling--most definitely a Crisis (Henry VI was overthrown in the Wars of the Roses Crisis) or an Awakening (Charles I got overthrown in that bloody Puritan/English Civil War Awakening). If a King is overthrown then the situation is either that it's a Crisis or an Awakening in English History. The issue then becomes determining whether its a Crisis or an Awakening.
Ever since the "Civil War" between Matilda and Stephen this has been a nearly regular issue of the English monarchy for quite some time. And it's always in an Awakening or a Crisis that the issue of "let's get rid of the monarchy" pops up once again in popular sentiment (like in the 1860s in England--when Victoria was in heavy mourning for Albert).
~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 04-10-2013 at 03:08 PM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
And the economic stress during these periods creates irritation that makes such sentiments more likley. That is, they can act as the triggers in my proposed mechanism for the pre-1840 saeculum.
Anyone who wants of copy of my Word document that describes this send me a private meassage with your e-mail address.
Last edited by Mikebert; 04-10-2013 at 03:30 PM.
