Meals of the Duke

A ruler of a small state or duchy. A provincial military ruler.

“The meals of the duke were ceremonies of a dignity that was almost liturgic. The descriptions by the master of ceremonies, Olivier de la Marche, are well worth reading. His treatise, L’Etat de la Mason du duc Charles de Bourgogne, composed at the request of the king of England, Edward IV, to serve him for a model, expounds the complicated service of breadmasters, carvers, cup-bearers, cooks, and the ordered course of the banquet, which was crowned by all the noblemen filing past the duke, who was still seated at table, ‘pour lui donner gloire.’ The kitchen regulations are truly Pantagruelistic. We may picture them in operation in the kitchen of heroic dimensions, with its seven gigantic chimneys, which can still be seen in the ducal palace of Dijon. The chief cook is seated on a raised chair, overlooking the whole apartment; ‘and he must hold in his hand a big wooden ladle which serves him for a double purpose: on the one hand to taste soup and broth, on the other to chase the scullions from the kitchen to their work, and to strike them, if need be.’”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Authors and Mental Inertia

Someone who brings something into existence. Someone who composes or writes a book or treatise. In this case, a historian.

“This failing to see the social importance of the common people, which is proper to nearly all authors of the fifteenth century, may be regarded as a kind of mental inertia, which is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence and vital importance in history. The idea which people had of the third estate had not yet been corrected and remodeled in accordance with altered realities. This idea was simple and summary, like those miniatures of breviaries, or those bas-reliefs of cathedrals, representing the tasks of the year in the shape of the toiling labourer, the industrious artisan, or the busy merchant. Among archaic types like these there is neither place for the figure of the wealthy patrician encroaching upon the power of the nobleman, nor for that of the militant representative of a revolutionary craft-guild. Nobody perceived that the nobility only maintained itself, thanks to the blood and the riches of the commoners.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Academic

Someone who teaches in an academy (i.e., a university or college).

“I don’t know if I ended up siding with the academics just because I happened to end up in graduate school, or if I ended up in graduate school because I already secretly sided with the academics. In any case, I stopped believing that ‘theory’ had the power to ruin literature for anyone, or that it was possible to compromise something you loved by studying it. Was love really such a tenuous thing? Wasn’t the point of love that it made you want to learn more, immerse yourself, to become possessed?”

Elif Batuman, The Possessed (2010).

Grenadier

Originally a soldier who threw grenades.

"Now were brought into service a new sort of soldiers call'd Granadiers, who were dextrous in flinging hand granados."

Evelyn, Diary (1678).

A (Sick) Master

Someone who owns (things, land, people). Someone who has mastered an art.

"Let the man who has acquired Enough not ask for MORE./ A house and acreage, a pile of bronze and gold coins,/ Have never been able to lower the sick master's fever/ Or drive out his worries."

Horace, Epistles, To Lollius Maximus (22 B.C.)

Magistrates for Sale

A civil servant who administers laws. A justice of the peace.

"But they think anything beseems them which brings in cash, that is, which increases the hunger of the poor and nourishes the luxury of the nobles (or rather the bandits). And there are even some who make a tidy pile out of the deeds of criminals, using the law as their fishing-net. Now what magistrate's post or governorship is there, which is not for sale in several quarters? And finally, since all these many expedients cannot fill a leaky barrel (i.e., the prince's royal treasury), someone thinks up a reason for going to war, the generals get their heads together, the unhappy population has the very marrow sucked out of its bones, just as if kingship were nothing but a vast profit-making concern."

Erasmus, Adages ("A mortuo tributum exigere") (1515).

[translated by Margaret Mann Phillips (1967)].

Tory

In the 17th century, dispossessed Irish who turned to robbing and murdering English settlers. Also known as bog-trotters.

“The bogs in Ireland afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, much resembling those who were afterwards known as Whiteboys. These men were then called Tories.”

Thomas Macaulay, The History of England (1849).