Caliban and The Witch is Garbage History

“ As Mary Condren has pointed Out in Serpent and the Goddess (1989), a study of the penetration of Christianity into Celtic Ireland, the Church’s attempt to regulate sexual” behavior had a long history in Europe. From a very early period after Christianity became a state religion in the 4th century, the clergy recognized the power that sexual desire gave women over men, and persistently , tried to exorcise it by identifying holiness with avoidance of women and sex. ExpeliIng women from any moment of the liturgy and from the administration of the sacraments; trying to usurp women’s life-giving, magical powers by adopting a feminine dress; and making sexuality an object of shame “

By adopting a “feminine dress” do you mean normal 4th century Byzantine attire? People wore fuckin’ robes.

Oh look 4th century Byzantine fashion

“Can we say that this large female presence in the heretic sects was responsible for the heretics’ “sexual revolution”? Or should we assume that the call for “free love” was a male ploy designed to gain easy access to women’s sexual favors? “

Here are some sources on why this is bullshit, 1. Because the female presence in most heretical sects was not particularly large and 2. Because “free love” was not a thing these sects preached.

Heresy and Gender in The Middle Ages is comprehensive and useful

Heretics and Scholars in the High Middle Ages, 1000-1200 By Heinrich Fichtenau points out that Bogomils and Cathars were sexually ascetic

Women and Gender in Medieval Europe

The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe Chapter 31 refutes the idea that women were more likely to participate in heresys (their participation was in fact lower)

“ Significantly -in view of me future criminalization of such practices during the witch-hunt – contraceptives were referred to as “Sterility potions” or maleficia (Noonan 1965: 155-61) “

Her sources on contraception and abortion are from John T. Noonan a very very conservative Catholic judge (appointed initially by Regan) with no training in history whatsoever. His book is revisionism by the modern church with little if any serious basis in history.

Here’s a better source

Also Oral Contraceptives and Early-Term Abortifacients during Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages is a good article

“recruits came from all walks of life: the peasantry, the lower ranks of the clergy (who identified with the poor and brought to their struggles the language of the Gospel), the town burghers, and even the lesser nobility. But popular heresy was primarily a lower class phenomenon. The environment in which it flourished was the rural and urban proletariat: peasants, cobblers, and doth workers “to whom it preached equality, fomenting their spirit of revolt with prophetic and apocalyptic predictions”

WRONG

Heresy was not a proletarian phenomenon

Especially not the Cathars

Seriously not the Cathars

“ when they succeeded in establishing what (with some exaggeration, perhaps) has been called the first “dictatorship of the proletariat” known in history. Their goal, according to Peter Boissonnade, was “to raise journeymen against masters, wage earners against great entrepreneurs, peasants against lords and clergy. It was said that they had contemplated the extermination of the whole bourgeois class, with the exception of children of six and the same for the nobles” “

Also she references P. Boissonnade/P. Boissonade work “Life and Work In Medieval Europe” frequently, and I can find essentially no material on who Boissonade/Boissonnade (it’s spelled both ways in references to him) other than what he wrote. His name may have been Peter, Pierre or Prosper and I HAVE NO IDEA WHICH AND FUCK THIS REFERENCE oh wait there’s a dead link about him on German Wikipedia. OH WAIT IT MAY NOT EVEN BE A HE EVEN THOUGH SILVIA CALLS HIM PETER. Prosper Marie Boissonade is… a French historian from the turn of the century and it is impossible to find anything very thorough on them.

“ On average, half of the town male youth, at some point, engaged in these assaults … / … For proletarian women, so cavalierly sacrificed by masters and servants alike the price to be paid was inestimable. Their reputation being destroyed, they would have to leave town or nun to prostitution ( ibid.; Ruggiero 1985: 99)”

Here’s the sourced material, Ruggiero’s book doesn’t back up what she’s saying. Also if half the town’s male youth was doing this… like… numerically I think that might not make sense.

For further reference on her nonsense arguments on witch hunts please see my post on Andrea Dworkin’s analysis of the same.

Also she does a lot of cherry picking from various areas of Europe to make her narrative look viable when it’s in fact… not.

I Wish I Could Verify My Theory That The Style Of CNT Militia Women Influenced Pachucas

Cause I know there were Mexican folks in the international brigades and I know that anarchists fled to various places in Latin America (among other places) after Franco won.

Cause CNT militia women (note the fatigues with flawless 30s hair and makeup:

Pachucas: Note the zoot suits and flawless 40s hair and makeup

Also you see the fouffy circle skirt thing? That’s called a tonlet, and it existed for a good reason. Basically armored pants have to have have joints so they can move, and joints mean gaps and gaps mean "OW MY KNEE/THIGH JOINT THE NAME OF WHICH I CAN’T REMEMBER, YOU STABBED IT WITH A SWORD AND/OR SPEAR!”

You know what doesn’t need joints so you can move? A bitchin’ metal version of Christian Dior’s new look. So if you were doing hand to hand to hand combat, and at risk of knee injury, well then there you are.

A Long Rant About Lady Armor and Boob Plate

I keep seeing arguments as to why boob plate should be banned from fantasy art because it is unworkable and will kill you and the argument basically says that should you ever fall down or get a blow to the chest, your armor will crunch in on your sternum killing you instantly This argument makes me mad partially because it’s not true, and partially because people’s proposed solutions are usually shitty boring ass “realistic”/”practical” armor (that’s wildly unrealistic and just exists in their imagination because of modern ideas of utilitarianism and practicality and the Victorians removing all the fouffy fabric bits and beautiful paint work from medieval suits of armor so that it looked “right” to them) so here’s my explanation of why it’s wrong and what we should do instead of the boring shit people usually suggest.

Boob plate.

by Feng Liu

And here’s why this argument makes me mad:

1. The problem isn’t whether or not it’s accurate, the problem is whether or not it’s misogynist, Most fantasy armor wouldn’t articulate right, has pointy sticky offy bits that would fuck you up in all sorts of ways, and removes a lot of the ornate metal work and fabric decoration that armor actually involved, but it’s fantasy SO THAT’S OKAY

The issue is that we keep hypersexualizing every goddamned female character ever put in armor and not doing the same thing to dudes, either put the dudes in a chainmail loincloth or don’t draw goddamn boob plate. I mean don’t even get me started on how leather armor is used so goddamned often when it was in fact a weird and incredibly rare choice.

Making it about accuracy distracts from the fact that the actual issue at hand is misogyny.

2. Ever seen Lorica Musculata?

3. That would only happen if you hammered a cleavage line in to a regular cuirass, if you hammer cups out, poured molten metal into a mold, or added boobs externally onto a cuirass (because I mean the real ones are kinda behind a bunch of padding) you’d be fine. This also assumes that armor bends or breaks MUCH more easily than it actually does. Armor is THICK bronze or steel.

4. But the real thing is, the onus is not on you to prove it’s impossible, the onus is on designers to justify why they’re putting it in there in the first place. Especially if you’re doing something where the designs are based on any actual period of history rather than a mishmash, because like men’s armor was based on the fashion trends of the day, and honestly designers are always missing out on awesome design inspiration, because like they could be using ladies’ fashion of the era to inspire their designs and it’d look fucking cool. I mean there are some eras where boob plate makes sense (17th century, ancient rome) and others where it doesn’t (13th to 16th century)

But seriously let’s have a loot at some fashion and armor of history:

14th century:

15th century:

16th Century:

Please note how the men’s fashion mirrors the silhouettes of the armor and vice versa, now please use more creativity in your costume design, armor was way more interesting and varied than most fantasy artists draw and it sucks, also make use of the elaborate headdresses, they look awesome. Like you don’t need to feel utterly bound to historical accuracy but the dull consistency of silhouettes in a lot of fantasy armor bores me to fucking tears, do some actual research and use some actual historical inspiration

Here’s a shitty scan of my husband being clever and awesome.