Thanks for the nitpickery, Duke. Of course, prices of Bibles were largely irrelevant. If you weren’t a priest in those days it was illegal to read one, and unless you could read Latin, Greek and/or Hebrew it would have been a waste of time trying. That said, most of the population weren’t even literate in English.
As for investing in livestock, no-one who was trying to live on five bob a year would have considered it. Instead they would resort to many of the classical Brit foodstuffs referred to passim on these boards, on which you could eat well for a farthing a day.
SDMB Captain Lance Murdoch, Angel of Death, The Grim Reeper, Foreteller of Demises, Psychic of Misfortunte, Celebrity Death Pool Winner would be more like it.
Ah, you ought to read my doctoral dissertation then The fixed-price Bible I refer to was the Great Bible of 1535, which was in English, and the first “authorized” translation of the Church of England after the Great Schism with Rome. It was legal to read it up to the reign of Mary (and even to some extent after that…I’d explain the situation but it took an entire chapter of the dissertation to hash through).
As for literacy rates during the reign of Henry VIII, it’s understandably a guessing game, but many historians think the proportion of literate could have been high. David Cressy thinks that in London as many as 25% of the laity could read.
Ooh, The Duck of Death has a really nice ring to it! I had a pet duck for a while, she was The Bringer of Horrendous Toe Pinchings, but The Duck of Death would have been much shorter.
I woke up late this morning, owing to the Head Cold From Hell. My phone is awaiting with my daily ‘breaking news’ headlines, and not one, not two, but three of them are about this Charles fellow. I felt as if I’d entered the twilight zone, and landed in a terrifying realm in which people actually care.
Personally, I think that the Queen’s family has already used up their yearly allowance of headlines, with the ‘prince nazi’ brou-ha-ha last month…
To further Duke’s points, this is mostly bollocks. The statements highlighted in red are wrong and those highlighted in orange are highly debatable. You’re confusing several different things. Modern commemorative crowns, which have to be bought and which are no more than a money-making scheme for the Royal Mint, are not the same thing at all as the medals once distributed as largesse at royal ceremonies, which usually meant only coronations, which were never legal tender and which were mostly distributed among the VIPs inside the Abbey, not the plebs outside. Most of Henry VIII’s marriage ceremonies were very low-key, private events. Which may provide an interesting topical parallel.
A rural labourer in sixteenth-century England would have struggled to live on five shillings a month, never mind a year. Anyone getting paid less than 2 pennies a day was a mug.
But on to more important things…
As for Charles and Camilla, good luck to them. The big problem those objecting to the marriage now face is that they’re almost bound to come across as mean-spirited killjoys.
Come, come old bean.
I certainly do have a job description. I wrote it (but that’s another story!).
But my job, like almost every other, was open to all. I had the appropriate qualifications and motivation. I agreed to do the job, and can be sacked if I fail to do so. As a teacher, there are some sensible extra restrictions to make sure the children in my care are properly treated. None of this applies to Charles.
Who are these ‘people’ who think that the future Head of the Church of England should f*ck whoever he wants?
Can you name one?
In addition, I would not let any future wife of mine be subjected to a humiliating exam to see if she was a virgin.
I appreciate that medieval Monarchs did behave how they wanted to. Why they could even have leading religious figures murdered and execute their wives to remarry! But we are not living in those times.
Ah, duck of Death. Now, if we could all jsut pretend for a moment that these are corgis or something, or flowers for Charlie to chat with, then I can claim still to be on topic.
Back to the topic, I can tell you all that I am going to become VERY bored with media mutterings all about the church of England, some time soon. OK, some time a few hours ago, and things can only get worse. Oh boy, at least this one won’t be the media frenzy that the Diana Spencer wedding was. :rolleyes:
Re. the crowns, yes it is nonsense that the whole population gets nice little crowns - I’m afraid I read that post as something of a deliberate joke, and was in a hurry and did not reply. (I thought it was merely meant as the traditional sport of confuse-a-foreigner)
glee, I can’t believe you’re serious. Do you honestly think that there is any king in the history of the C of E (possibly excluding Edward VI, who died quite young) who was not an adulterer? Whether you approve or not, the fact is that marital fidelity has not ever been a criterion for heading the C of E or the nation, at least for a male.
As for Charles staying in for the wealth, well, the Duke of Windsor certainly wasn’t hurting throughout his non-royal life. After a certain point, unless you’re making it and thus using it as a scorecard, how much difference does the extra money make? Fabulously wealthy is fabulously wealthy. Can’t you cut the man a break and allow for at least the possibility that he made the marital choice he made from a sense of duty rather than grasping desire for filthy lucre? He had that duty pounded into his head from the day he was born; it can’t be easy to just say ‘oh, to hell with it!’ It’s not just a matter of standing up to his parents - difficult though even that may be. If you’ve been raised to believe that the welfare of your nation depends at least in some small part on your actions, your willingness to sacrifice your own desires for your assigned roles, it can’t be a minor thing.
When I was a child I used to envy the royal family. Now, no amount of wealth could tempt me to take the job. Had Charles married Camilla to begin with, he would have been excoriated by the public and the press to an intolerable degree; would have rightly been believed to have sacrificed his duty for his own wishes. Whether or not those customs are outdated isn’t relevant - the fact is, they were part of the job he was born to, not chose. Are there compensations? Sure. It would be lovely to be that rich. But not lovely enough for most rational adults to choose it with the price it carries.
Don’t get me wrong - I don’t think Charles is flawless at all, and obviously he shouldn’t have been with Camilla while they were both married. But your statements about his worthiness seem inconsistent with the reality that has obtained for centuries, and I think you are overly harsh in your assessment of his motives.
Personally, I think that when he married Diana, he might have been trying to do the “decent” thing for Queen and Country, so to speak, particularly seeing as Camilla had already married. Fair enough. However, then, to disrespect his marriage vows the way he did, and not just the adultery bit, but the “respect” bit as well, is downright reprehensible.
So, if William has to marry a virgin, who is he going to marry? Does she still have to be royalty, now that everyone is marrying ordinary people? And she has to be CofE? Surely this does not leave him much of a range…
Whoever wrote the movie for *The Madness of King George * appeared to believe that he and his wife were faithful to each other.
Anybody familiar with that period of English history want to make a guess?
The fixed-price Bible I refer to was the Great Bible of 1535, which was in English, and the first “authorized” translation of the Church of England after the Great Schism with Rome. It was legal to read it up to the reign of Mary (and even to some extent after that…I’d explain the situation but it took an entire chapter of the dissertation to hash through).