Cameron redesigns the Royal Navys flag

Versions of the white ensign have been flown by the ships of the Royal navy since the early 17th century.




However the new strategic defence review has announced a new and cost cutting version which will correctly reflect the Condem Naval strategy for the next ten years

fighting back

perhaps it is my age, but try as I might I cannot stand the thought of sitting through hours of political bullshit meetings. If opposing and fighting back against this slimeball government means having to listen to the would be Commissars and waannabe carreerists tossing themselves into verbal orgasm a the thought of at last having an audience again (since the last one melted away buried under a mass of unwanted 'we are all hesbollah' placards). then we have alreasdy lost. however for the left this matters not. their agenda isn't anything about stopping the cuts or defending the working classes living conditions, and everything about atttracting a new layer of sub paying sheep to fill the coffers and keep the full timers in their positions.
It is for this reason that I welcome Ian Bones attempt to revive CLASS WAR,
We need to bring back the ethos of Class War; cut through the bollocks of the lefty poseurs and instead make the rich afraid! make it clear that the libdems and the tories are, each and every one of the curs, personally responsible for the effects of the cuts that Camerron/Clegg impose.
"if you cut our services- we will cut you!"

who is that fat bastard?

The Torys are back. Let the mask drop!

the sides of cop cars have in recent years become emblazoned with mission statements, usually crouched in incomprehensible, corporate, bollockeese.
in the thames valley for instance the police cars have for a number of years had "Thames Valley Police: Reducing crime disorder and fear" stencilled on them.
However it appears that the arrival of a Tory government the necessity for bland sloganeering is over. The above picture is of one of the vans deployed by the riot cops who kettled the anarchist bloc protesting against the Tories' conference in Birmingham last weekend.
For those without a classical education the latin is a quote attributed to Caligula
"Let them Hate so long as they Fear."
Community policing?
Utinam custodiae unam cervicem haberet!

thanx Ian Bone

I Love the Railway benefit Fund

the lovely people at the Railway benefit fund have agreed to pledge me enough money to allow me to undertake my first module of my masters.
Now to start saving for the second!!

please give me all your money

I am pleased to repoprt that I have been offered a place at Reading University to study for a MRes in Medieval Studies.
The downside is that for some unknown reason there is not a huge amount of funding available for budding medievalists.
I therefore need to find the money to pay my fees.
I am planning to study part time. This will enable me to meet my families living expenses whilst I am studying, and also to ensure that I continue to assist my wife in providing care to the foster children in our charge.
If you can help, then please visit my gofundme page:
http://funds.gofundme.com/n32g


anything that you can contribute will help enormously. The course is divided modularly, and the first module is only £500, which is not an impossible amount.
I hope that can get some funding from the Railway benefit fund, but cannot expect them to stump up all the cash.

SWP- Hilter, "not all bad"

I am getting better, I no longer wait, baited breath, for Wednesday morning when I can read the latest ramblings of Socialist Worker for more evidence of the demise of senile Trotskyism into its final dotage.
I am indebted therfore to Ian Bone for flagging up the latest triumphant Low in a catalogue of all time lows from the SWP.
In an article attacking the sacrifice and bravery of those who defeated Nazi Germany's attempt to invade Britain in 1940, Chris Bambery, attack dog of the Central committee reveals the following gem:
"Another Falsehood is that Hitler was planning to invade Britain"

Bambers goes on to claim that the real fascist was Churchill, not Hitler. that the blame for the deaths of so many Londoners during the Blitz was down to Churchill, not the Nazi bombers. That the battle of Britain was nothing to do with defending Britain but to boost Churchill's reputation. And that the whole thing was a propaganda exercise:
The air battles of 1940 were used to huge effect to win sympathy for Britain in the US.

I have read much of this filth before; it is the mainstay of the so called "revisionists", who seek to absolve Hitler and the nazi regime from all culpability for the Second world war and ultimately to explain away and deny the reality of the Holocaust.

If you think that I am quoting out of context or twisting Bambi's words read the original here

A world to win? An open invitation.

Thinking about the post before last, it occurred to me that I had not heard anyone from the Left actually talk about what it is that they were fighting for.
we know plenty about what we are against, but nothing at all about what would replace the present state of affairs if the Left was to take power.
I am of the opinion that this is one of the problems that confronts the Left; it has become a reactionary movement, certain in its dislikes, but without any positive message to enthuse or attract new support.
This has not always been the case; at the beginning of the twentieth century Socialists, whether Marxist social democrats, or Leninist Communist were able to mobilise hundreds of thousands with their visions of the better world that the adoption of their programmes would herald. Even the industrial unions of the Anarcho Syndicalists gained mass support in certain areas.
This was because, however authoritarian or muddle headed the solutions offered by these organisations, they made sense and offered an improvement in the conditions that the working class were enduring under a Capitalism violently tearing itself apart attempting to escape from the crisis of Imperialist confrontation.
The world, and Capitalism, has moved on. But the Left has not.
Tony Cliff used to say that the case for Socialism was simple, just look at what Capitalism has done: but this just does not cut the mustard; without a real vision offering the Working Class a better future it cannot hope, nor deserve, to attract support.
I think that the Left has lost all sight of a positive vision for the future, but I want to be proved wrong.
I am therefore opening up this blog for anyone who wishes to put forward a vision or blueprint for a socialist future.
Send them in, show us what we are fighting for.
Just a couple of rules:
1. Only positive visions- we are always hearing what we are against- this is to hear what we are for.
2. no attacks on others, put forward your vision, don't snipe at others ( the lefts only acheivement in recent years has been to embrace the internet as a weapon of vitriol).
3. Lets have vision for a future- not reruns of 1917, 1936 etc. etc.

Contributions will be published as seperate authored posts, with their own comments threads.

"Socialism in the 21st Century." sic.

An old mate has sent me this:

On Tuesday 6th July the day after Marxism 2010 finished, four supporters of the IS Tendency (a man and three women) walked into a tube station near the event venue. One was wearing a Marxism 2010 tee-shirt, another carrying a Sociailst Worker poster, the other two were more anonymous. One of the women attempted to fare dodge by doubling through the barrier. The staff on duty stopped her and insisted she buy a ticket (I know it sounds trite but they were only doing their job!). An argument ensued in which the four comrades began shouting abuse at three tube workers (two of whom were members of the RMT union).



I thought it very ironic. These four socialists (who appeared to be middle class students), had spent five days at an event called 'Marxism'; attending such courses as 'Class in the 21st century' with a meeting on 'What makes you working class?' and were probably inspired by the idea of working class power in the abstract.



Then, at what was virtually their first encounter with real working class people in the workplace after leaving the campus they showed such a high degree of contempt and hostility towards the very workers with whom they entrust the future of humanity.



As the abuse (which admittedly by now was travelling in both directions) heated up one comrade called a female tube worker 'a bitch'. Presumably this socialist had attended the meeting on 'What did the Russian Revolution do for women?' or maybe the meeting on 'The New Sexism'.



This incident is known because one of the tube workers present was himself once a member of the SWP and attended Marxism on five occassions in the 80's and 90's. The incident left him feeling embarassed and ashamed.

thanks to 3S

Finding something worth fighting for is harder than finding something to fight against

Throughout the many years that I have spent ‘on the left’ I held on to a, sometimes shifting, vision of the type of society that I wanted to see achieved through our collective efforts.
I remained convinced that Marx was correct when he said that the working class would bring about a socialist society, not through the preaching of pious sermons and abstract principles, but because socialism would make every ones life better, and that Capitalism could not hope to meet peoples needs. Tony Cliff used to say that the case for socialism is easy, just look at what Capitalism does.
One of the earliest doubts that I had about the apparent inevitability of socialisms triumph was how dismissive other socialists appeared to be of every aspect of life that made it pleasant or bearable; the Televisions, soap operas, games consoles, washing machines football, etc. etc. The po faced Puritanism of these ‘Comrades’ and their sneering contempt of the ‘proles’ who could be bought off by such trinkets, made me nervous about the type of new world that they would seek to lead, and wonder how exactly a working class might be persuaded to give up all its pleasures and small luxuries to struggle for a socialism which offers them a worse standard of living.
Marx had insisted in the mid nineteenth century that Capitalism would be forced by competition to drive the living standards of the workers down to the point of absolute poverty, whilst simultaneously creating the wealth and productive forces that could provide for the needs of all.
Marx was bang on the money when it came to the potential of capitalism to produce immeasurable wealth, more than enough to meet the needs of every person across the globe, however he was completely wrong when it came to the working class.
Everywhere that Capitalism goes in its search for new markets and greater profits, yesterday in Japan and Korea, today in China and India, it brings wages and conditions, which whilst far worse than those enjoyed in Western Industrial nations are far greater than anything previously known in these countries. It creates markets amongst these new workers for its consumer goods, and in bringing them together creates the collective power for those workers that allows them to force better conditions and higher wages.
Marx was first and foremost a National Revolutionary, he, and Engels fought in 1848 for a unified Germany under a liberal- republican programme, and Marx’s preoccupation with the promotion of a ‘state’ solution, and German unification informed his writings throughout his life.
Stuck in a vision of revolution and Socialism unbreakably saddled to Marx’s failed vision Socialists have repeatedly sought a short cut that could bypass the unforgivable reluctance of the working class to allow the socialists to lead them to revolution. The vanguard party as envisioned by Lenin, which supplanted the role of the Class with that of a disciplined, combat party to capture state power was the most pervasive and long lasting of these , but every generation has adopted Generals, dictators, demagogues and charlatans who it was held would, through autocratic power of will and ruthless denial of liberty, cut through the reluctance of the proletariat to fulfil its allotted role, and each generation has had its subsequent disillusionment and recrimination as these socialists learn once again the meaning of the old song:

“Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun”
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the failure of the embalmed Lenin Corpse god, the search for a short cut for socialism has become more desperate; even those who were formally intensely hostile to the Stalinist Bloc, such as the Trotskyists, shared so many assumptions with their estranged Bolshevist cousins as to have been totally disarmed and disorientated by their sudden, rapid and total collapse.
The failure of state socialism left the Left rudderless. Without a central anchor subsidiary concerns took centre stage.
Anti- imperialism was once a means to an end, the idea being that the overthrow of Imperialist control would empower working class struggles in the Home countries, and that the weakness and cowardice of the native bourgeoisie would ensure that the working class in the colonies would inevitably take the leading role in overthrowing imperialist control and then pass directly on to the socialist revolution. It was a nonsense, but one that fitted into the wider world view of the Leninist Left. Despite decades of experience in which the theory was repeatedly disproved, and one liberation leader after another, promoted and lauded by the International Left, betrayed the hopes embodied in him, the left was unable and unwilling to break with the theory, for to do so would be to show their Gods as fallible.


Now the failure of ‘really existing socialism’ and the increasing irrelevance of the Left domestically led to Anti Imperialism taking centre stage, but now devoid of the old ’progressive’ baggage; now anyone who attacks or fights America, or the West in general is worthy of support; Serbian Chauvinists, Iraqi Ba’athists, the Taliban, etc. etc., no matter how brutal, authoritarian and murderous the regime could be toward its own population, if it stands, temporarily, in confrontation with the US then it will be supported and justified by the western left.
Only certain nations are worthy of support; the travails of Kurds, Tibetans, Armenians and Georgians etc. are ignored whilst all eyes are focussed on the ‘crimes’ of Israel, who uniquely amongst all the states of the world, is denied even the right to exist. The Left rolls itself in the filth of Anti-Semitism, revamped versions of the Medieval Blood libel is peddled without murmur and the left marches under Hamas flags and chants:
“We are all Hesbollah!”

When I left the SWP, it was the wholesale adaptation of its politics to appeal to Muslim communities, and especially Muslim community leaders, accepting the myth of Islamophobia; that there was a world wide war against Muslims, led by the USA and in the service of the ‘Zionists’, that was a major impetus in making me leave.
I began a journey across the left, attempting to rediscover the original vision of the need for a better world which had originally inspired me, but I came to the conclusion that the rot went far further than just the SWP. It was not there was a moral vacuum in the left, but instead a willingness to close its collective eyes to injustice and oppression in the name of a Greater Good.
Only among the Anarchists that could I find those who refused to compromise principle and remain true to a vision of a better world free from the shackles of State and God, however, even within the Anarchist movement they were a small minority whilst the mass of anarchists parroted the lefty lines; but dressed in black and with more swears.

If we want to change the world, we should first ensure that what we want to replace it with is better than what we already have. Our present system has all kinds of faults; a Government driving through its ideologically driven agenda of cuts to the public sector, even though the majority of voters have just voted against these cuts, and that government is propped up by M.P.s who were elected on a manifesto opposing those cuts, invites, if not demands opposition. But such opposition is possible because of the democratic nature of our society, we have the right to protest. All too much of the left who will be jockeying to provide the ‘leadership’ of the anti cuts movement are committed to sweeping away all democratic rights if they ever came within a whisper of gaining power. They are willing to tolerate the murder of gays and women abroad in order to gain the support of Islamist influenced Muslims here.
Before we break the chains of the old oppression lets make sure that in doing so we are not laying upon ourselves even heavier shackles wrapped in shiny ‘socialist’ garb.

'aving a laff? No, not really.

this weeks socialist worker is trying to drum up support for it's weekend summer school, Marxism (sic), In doing so they interview two (pretty obscure) stand up comedians who are on the slate for 'the entertainment'. The first Steve Parry is, we are breathlessly informed:
"a stand up comedian and writes for the Frank Skinner Show.

He has written for Man Stroke Woman, Dead Ringers and The Morning After Show. He works regularly for the legendary Basil Brush"




He is also a tosser.

You know, we talk about barricades and revolution, but our every day tools are trestle tables, leaflets and petitions.

Those fold up tables are like our Molotov cocktails – we are aware of where we are.

no. they are not.

a table


a molotov.

remember, it is important to recognise the differences.




the other, Joe Wells, is even more impressive, clearly expressing the rationale behind the swappies obsession with concealing their true political agenda behind numerous front campaigns

If you can win a crowd to trust you on something like fascism, then you can talk to them about anything.’

Better Late than never

Well done England.
Played football like you meant it.
Germany next?

Condem: can't even make the trains run on time!

The first Tory MP to try and top himself has made a complete bollocks of it.
Try harder next time!

shouldering responsibility

after the ultra- slow- slow- motion- car- crash- mascarading- as- a- football- game which was England vs. Algeria the blame game and recriminations are sure to follow.
In reality however I think it is time that resposnibility is acknowledged where it truly lies:

With me.


Well in truth, all of us.


We are like the woman who appears on Jeremy Kyle; she knows that he uses drugs, sleeps around steals and knocks her about, and yet she always ready to forgive him, to believe his latest sob story and to take him back.

Until the next time.
It is the same with England. Every four years the drums start beating and the strains of 'its coming home' awakens a small spark of optimism deep in a heart that has been scarred far to often, and suddenly you find yourself repeating the mantra of the abused:
"but they've changed! This time it will be better, they've promised!"
and we wave our little flags deck ourselves in our replica shirts and park ourselves in front of the television and find that its the old story once again.
At least Jeremy Kyle's ne'erdo wells have a chance of scoring (usually with their sister in laws).
Like the poorly misused women of Kyle's show, a clean break is what is needed
It is time to break the cycle of abuse.
I have decided to learn Dutch.
Hup Holland!

flotilla fancies

A week after the tragic events which followed the interception of the Gaza Aid flotilla by the Israeli military, here are some thoughts.
I have restrained myself from becoming embroiled in the discussions which immediately followed the killings of the activists by the Israeli commandoes; so much has become merely the entrenchment of existing positions made even more strident and more violent by the events on the Mavi Marmara.
what occurred upon the Turkish ship was it seems to me the tragic consequences of propaganda and rhetoric coming into stark conflict with reality.
The Israelis, and their supporters have portrayed the pro Gaza protesters, and those on the convoys, and ships as all terroristic jew haters; whilst still believing that they were really dealing with ISM style hippies. Thats why they stromed the ships armed with paintguns!
Meanwhile the politics of AntiZionism has been becoming increasingly violent in its rhetoric about Israel and its behaviour toward the Palestinians. Previous positions, whether 'two states' or a democratic and secular 'one state', which had been the mainstays of the Left have been sidelined by the growth and influence of radical Islamism, both within Palestine and the power of Hamas, and in the wider movement. Open and explicit Anti Semitic themes have become more common, and have been left unchallenged within the Anti zionist movement. Israel is accused of committing a Genocide on the people of Gaza, and of acting toward the Palestinians as bad as, if not worse than, the Nazis toward the Jews.
And yet, when attempting to break what they themselves descibed as 'a medieval siege' they seemed to think that Israel would respect International Law and not attempt to physically prevent them going to Gaza. Some of the activists even took kids with them!

"daddy are we going to centerparcs this year",
"no son we are going to lift the siege of Gaza and halt the Zionazi genocide!"
"yay!".
When the Israeli commandoes abseiled on to deck of the Mav Marmara, this mess of rhetoric and reality met head on; Turkish Islamists attempting to defeat the might of the Israeli State armed with sticks, and Israeli commanders continuing to drop soldiers singly into a armed and angry crowd.

one Laws for the rich....

The usual suspects of ConDem politicians and sycophantic journalists rush to assure us of the Good Nature and Honest Intent of David Laws, the arch slasher of the coalition, who we are earnestly informed should not be made to suffer too long for his 'attempt to keep his personal relationship a secret', and that the £40,000 he falsely claimed was not a great deal of money and far less than he might have claimed. Laws had been living with his partner since 2004 and claiming housing costs for 'renting a room'.

Meanwhile on Friday a Norfolk mother, Sarah Riley, was imprisoned for falsely claiming £10,000 in housing benefit over a period of 7 years after negletting to inform the authorities that she had started a relationship.

Jailing her for 20 weeks, judge Alasdair Darroch, told her he accepted that prison would be devastating for her but said: “This is a very large sum of public money and there was dishonesty going on for a long period of years.”

He accepted her relationship with her partner had not been stable but said: “I'm unable to avoid a prison sentence.”

Apparently Class is no longer an issue in 21st century Britain.

sWpANKERS!

Watching the BBC footage of the lunatic disruption by the SWP of the ACAS talks between BA and UNITE my wife noted that "even the Anarchists were never so stupid". she is quite right, not even in the most fevered, acid fuelled, nightmares of Ian Bone and Chris Knight could such a cackhanded, wrongheaded, and completely counterproductive stunt have been imagined!
the cynical and elitist hijacking of the cause of the BA crew by the swap-trots displays in the most stark terms possible their contempt for the working class and for the futures of those in whose name they claimed to be acting.
If there can be any good from this shameful display then let us hope that it opens the eyes of trades unionists everywhere to the anti working class, anti union, and anti socialist nature of this nasty little sect.

red shirts and red herrings

Amid the gloom and foreboding surrounding the Condem victory in Britain, it is understandable that some might look far afield where exciting revolts and movements might be found to give those awaiting the firm hand of tory governance some vicarious joy.
The most visible and misunderstood of these foreign rebellions is the redshirts of Thailand, where the fact that the protesters are dress in RED is enough to gain support from the more credulous, or those who consider that they are fighting the state is enough
However the world is a far more complicated place. Luckily on Dave Osler's site there is some sanity his reader LesAbby is a Thai resident and is able to give a proper analysis of the situation: The Class politics of the thailand crisis

the comments are especially interesting as LesAbby confronts some of those leftwingers who would rather see the world as they wish it to be rather than it really is. this for me is the clincher

Another quick thought. The red shirt movement has failed to expand its base to three important groups, although this could of course change. I have already talked about their inability to attract young Bangkok industrial workers and the trade unionists in the state sector. Another group missing are the university students both from the provincial and the Bangkok universities. Instead of the say 50% student makeup of the rally you could expect, you find it’s probably less than 1%. This should be the area you would think the academia based Trotskyist movement could supply the numbers.

Last night the red shirts were driven away from setting up a stage at Ramkhamhaeng University, a school where fees are low and many courses part or flexible time so attracting poorer students. Now whether this was by fellow students, the police or other elements I haven’t found out yet.

Going the other way and looking at a group that overwhelmingly supports the red shirts, you find the police. Now while the army may be the more corrupt group in total financial value, the police are the most corrupt group the public has to deal with on a daily basis. Their traffic stops are there to do just one thing, generate cash payoffs. In the ‘entertainment’ industry by far the largest mafia like organization is the police force. If they are on your side you should start to get a little suspicious.

yellow fucking tories

Vote liberal, you get Tories.
WHAT PART OF THIS DIDN'T YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?

At least now the choice is clear, the ConDems will cut and slash and Labour will fight them.

A shabby deal behind closed doors and fuck the landed Gentry!

Nick Clegg Makes his position known


as the two public school toffs cobble a stitch up between them, nobody should be in any doubts that this has bugger all to do with democracy. the old etonian and the old Westminsterian are carving up the spoils before toasting a muffin between the buttocks of the british people.
Clegg made much during the campaign when the polls seemed to promise him the possibility of either a first place or second in the popular vote about how he would refuse to deal with a labour leader who came third in the poll, yet now even though Clegg was trounced in the election he stands as the kingmaker; hypocracy thy name is liberal.



billy Braggart Mansion

Yesterday we were treated to a amazing sight- a demonstration of the smug; liberal democrats marching to lobby clegg to ensure electoral change, amongst them was Billy Braggart- a man who for years paraded himself as a labour supporter, and after buying his country estate in dorset, famously declared that Labour could never win in such areas and that Labour supporters should back the libdems ( luckily weymouth and the rest of south dorset's working class ignored him and Labour promptly won there the next two elections). Bragg-art is now firmly outed as a Liberal landowner, When he shows up at Tolpuddle this year, like the country squire sharing his largesse amongst his loyal peasants, lets hope he gets told that Tory supporting turncoats can fuck off!

Don't let them back in

There is only one way to
Stop the Toffs
Vote Labour

an occasional update

I am painfully aware that I am not, when it comes to the frequency of my posts, a electronic samuel pepys, just recently I have had to complete my dissertation and am in the middle of revision for my finals, We are also fostering a succession of short-term emergency placement kids, which take up much of the available blogging time (to say nothing of the sitting around staring at the telly and painting (badly) english civil war model soldiers that takes up the other 90% of my life).
I am also trying, slowly to work out the politics that I now want to argue for; I am still convinced in the necessity of a non- statist, libertarian, socialism; though how that could be, or should be created is far less clear.
Anarchism as a movement is a historical not a current phenonemom, its adherents in the here and now have little more significance than the Sealed Knot, who spend their weekends recreating the battles of the English Civil War.
Social democracy is a movement that has, despite the best predictions, and repetitive declarations, of the far left flatly refused to disappear.
It is a movement, both on its left and right, that is firmly wedded to authoritarian and statist politics.
The ideals of the Labour Left are rested on the myths of the 1945 Labour Government, that socialism is attained through Nationalisation, through the bureaucratic management of Capital.
Neither the vacuousness of sectarian purity, nor the state worshipping of the social democratic left (let alone the would-be chekists of the leninists) are attractive to me.
Instead I am starting to look again at the experience of the ILP after its split from Labour in 1932; rejecting the betrayals of the Labour party in office and under attack from the Communists- to the extent of the murder of its leading comrades at the hands of the OGPU in Spain. The ILP had to develop a revolutionary policy was combined with a serious commitment to practical work in working class communities. the ILP's experience has been historically denigrated by Labour movement historians who influenced by either Labourism, who denied that the split could never be justified nor have any positive outcome, or communist or trotskyite, who could not forgive the ilps refusal to kowtow to Moscow.
It is impossible to recreate the pre war ILP; it would be an exercise as pointless as the 1917, 1936 and 1945 reenactment societies that prolifigate the left.
Instead there has to be a new attempt to create a left, one which places individual liberty as highly as social and economic equality. One that refuses to become embroiled in the false messiah of "Anti Imperialism"; which betrays the working class of the third world by giving left cover to their rulers, whose sole 'redeeming' feature is their opposition to the US government.
It is depressing therefore to read that a serious attempt to build an independent working class politics- the IWCA seems to be floundering in the one area that it had had some limited success, in the Blackbird Leys area of Oxford, and is abandoning electoral politics for 'community work'.
Enough meandering, back to the books- I have to immerse myself into the history of the 12th/13th century French Monarchy for the next two weeks.

never acceptable

the trotskyists can't even achieve cult status

Those of us who have been through the mill of trotskyite politics have argued that It resembles more of a series of religious cults than a political movement. This belief is usually treated as little more than an insult in the knockabout world of interweb political banter.
However, it appears that some enterprising comrades at the socialist party (thats the old Militant Tendency, now outside Labour and in the big wide world) decided that there might be currency in admitting that they are a religious cult after all.
They took the trades union UNISON to an employment tribunal claiming that the unions attempt at stopping trotskyite manipulation of their union, was denying their religious freedom under the new antidiscrimination laws.
The tribunal threw the SPEW application out, and were particularly vehement in their judgement of the political beliefs of the trotskyists, describing them as holding views which were “not compatible with human dignity” that the attitudes of the SP were “Extreme and repugnant views” and that Trotskyism is “not a belief that qualifies for protection from discrimination" they found that “The claimant views conflict with the fundamental rights of others, and the dignity of others, and are not worthy of respect... in a democratic society".
Understandably the socialist party has been somewhat miffed by this verdict. They have decried it as an attempt by a Capitalist legal system to attack socialism and put it on a par with the banning of the British airways staff strike before christmas. http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/8772
Leaving aside the absurdity of comparing an injuction gained by the management of BA banning a legal ballot by 14000 workers with an employment tribunal verdict in a case they themselves had brought . What is striking is the unbelievable naivety of these 'professional revolutionaries'. They complain that the courts are capitalist and class biased, and "that socialists and Marxists do not have the right to be protected in law from discrimination and harassment in the workplace or in a trade union."
what sort of revolutionaries seek legal protection from the state? what sort of socialist attempt to attack their trades union by dragging them through the capitalist courts?
Oh yes, Leninists.

Heres to you, Mrs Robinson.

are you willing to discuss an alteration to the marching route down the Garvaghy road or are you trying to seduce me?


when the Good Friday agreement was first implemented there were elements not just within the ranks of die hard republicanism who were of the opinion that the decades long struggle for a united Ireland had been abandoned by Provisional Sinn Fein/PIRA. Recent developments should silence such critics.
The revelations of guilty, intergenerational, sex scandal, intermixed with financial shenanigans with the ubiquitous "property developers" show how close Stormont has grown to the example set by their estranged cousins on the Liffey. That it is the DUP that is leading 'Norn into this historic convergence is clear vindication of the far sightedness of the Adams/Mcguinness strategy.

An American gets it

....Why? Because it is exploitation, not discrimination, that is the primary producer of inequality today. It is neoliberalism, not racism or sexism (or homophobia or ageism) that creates the inequalities that matter most in American society; racism and sexism are just sorting devices. In fact, one of the great discoveries of neoliberalism is that they are not very efficient sorting devices, economically speaking. If, for example, you are looking to promote someone as Head of Sales in your company and you are choosing between a straight white male and a black lesbian, and the latter is in fact a better salesperson than the former, racism, sexism and homophobia may tell you to choose the straight white male but capitalism tells you to go with the black lesbian. Which is to say that, even though some capitalists may be racist, sexist and homophobic, capitalism itself is not...

....This is also why the real (albeit very partial) victories over racism and sexism represented by the Clinton and Obama campaigns are not victories over neoliberalism but victories for neoliberalism: victories for a commitment to justice that has no argument with inequality as long as its beneficiaries are as racially and sexually diverse as its victims.

In the neoliberal utopia that the Obama campaign embodies, blacks would be 13.2 per cent of the (numerous) poor and 13.2 per cent of the (far fewer) rich; women would be 50.3 per cent of both. For neoliberals, what makes this a utopia is that discrimination would play no role in administering the inequality; what makes the utopia neoliberal is that the inequality would remain intact.

Walter Benn Michaels- Against Diversity
from here
(thanks Butchers)

Blimey thats a turn up...

...after 25 years I have rejoined the labour party.


not from any matter of principle, I am as convinced as ever that there is no state road to socialism, whether revolutionary(bolshevik) nor reformist (labour). I am however painfully aware of the threat of a tory victory at the next election. The past 13 years Labour in government have done many things that I have found execrable, and yet have rebuilt the NHS, introduced the minimum wage and the tax credit system which has made a real difference to the lives of many working class people. the existence of a Labour govt. has given us a, relatively, benign regime in which to operate, a situation which would change immensly if Cameron and his toffs get in.
I look at Brown's handling of the recession and note that there has been less reprossessions than expected, less bankruptcies, lower unemployment, There is little that national politicians can do in the face of a global recession but it seems that Brown and co have in many ways given us a soft landing.
In contrast the slathering of Cameron's cronies at the chance to slash and burn the welfare state in their urge to cut! cuT! cUT! CUT! shows that they are determined to take us back to Thatchers days.
so I signed up to do what I can to stop Cameron.

long live the Iranian revolution

the streets of Terhan have run red with the blood of the people for too long. the Iranians will not accept their oppression anymore. long live the Iranian revolution!
let us hope that kHameni and his thugs get the same christmas present as Caecescu got in 1989

some thoughts on the trotmaggedon

martin smith - tight trousers, no balls

.
whilst the key board is working again, (at the moment my lap top writes something lk his al e ime). I think that it would be nice to write a few words about the current crisis wrackng the "premier" trotskyite franchise in the UK, the SWP.
As readers of this blg may remember, I spent 20 years a member of this cult, and although I am a lot better now I still take an interest in its travails ( even if that does sometimes express itself in breaking up a swappie meeting whilst drunkedly demanding "20 years worth of fucking subs" back from a rather scared looking Martin Smith).
I left the SWaP during the movement against the Iraq war, the popular frontism of the Rees/ German leadership of the party and the STWC sent me out of the party and begin the process of questioning the whole conceit that underpins leninism and statist socialism in general; the supplanting of the party for the class and the emphasis on leadership which so quikly bcomes a cult of personality and always relegates the working class the role of grateful objects of the party's benificence rather than the protagonists in their own liberation.
My disagreement with Rees and German might, you think, lead me to cheer on the SWP CC against the Ree/German 'left Faction', and to be frank seeing those bastards get a kicking is very satisfying. however the behaviour of the CC leaves one supremely pleased that they are never going to get close to real power.
The central evidence provided by the CC in expelling several of Rees' more prominent supporters consists of personal emails which it is claimed prove factional behaviour, and appear to have stolen from the inbox of one of the expelled. Complaints from the Rees faction have been dismissed by the CC with the declaration that the party is not bound by

Bourgeois concepts of legality

that sound you can hear in the distance is the echo of the doors of the Lubyanka prison slamming shut.

its Christmas!- lets do some bishop bashing

'Tis the season of goodwill and the journalists are more pissed and lazy than they are normally. in the search of a good filler for their newspapers and programmes they reach for that mainstay at times of vaguely religious festivals of finding a priest making some bollox argument to fill the airwaves with manufactured outrage and moral hypocrisy.
step forward the vicar of st Lawrence and st Hilda who has suggested that for families that are going without it is better to shoplift for what they need than to burgle or prostitute themselves.
the good rev goes on to say:

I would ask that they do not steal from small, family businesses, but from national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices."

however he cautioned:

I would rather that people take an 80p can of ravioli rather than turn to some of the most appalling things.

"Burglary causes untold harm and damage to people in a way that taking a can of spaghetti rings from a supermarket doesn't.

This hits all the buttons for the lefty muddle classes- a distain for material possessions by those who never have wanted for anything, opposition to capitalism (but only bad big capitalism), and a determination that the poor should know heir place(which is being shown the right way to do things by their betters), and a unwillingness to ever live in the real world.

the Rev tells the poor to steal from the big shops; because they can afford it. They also can afford CCTV, security guards, solicitors, and civil recovery firms.
These impose penalties on those accused of shoplifting (but never convicted of any crime) of hundreds of pounds more than the amounts they are accused of stealing.
the rev wants the poor to confirm themselves in his image of them; only taking a tin of ravioli. fuck that! if you are in such straits, get the fucking widescreen TV! stealing something like that might justify the risks involved.
this ecclesiastical fagin also displays his own fear; that those who live in poverty might seek to find redress by the expropriation of those who have never wanted for anything. like himself.

How typical were the attitudes of the Gunpowder Plotters of English Catholics at the time?

 

Before attempting to ask how typical were the Gunpowder plotters of English Catholics at the start of the 17^th century one must first be clear who was a Catholic at that time; for by the time that James I, and VI, had become king in 1603 it had become impossible to talk about a single English Catholic community. The divisions that had grown within English Catholicism between the traditionalist, Catholic communities of the North and West of the country and the 'Manor House' Catholicism of the recusant gentry of the South and East who were influenced by the more intransigent and aggressive ideology of counter reformation European Catholicism were as great, if not greater than those which had divided the 'godly' and the mainstream of the, protestant, Church of England. Indeed the gulf within English Catholicism was so great that, apart their common exclusion from the national church, the differing factions would be hard pressed to recognise each other as common religionists.

The Gunpowder plotters were both the expression of the desperate extremity that the Gentry Catholics in their isolation, believed themselves driven to, and, for many of the traditionalist Catholics, a final straw that broke them from their residual loyalty to the old church and into conformity with the Church of England.

By the end of Elizabeth's reign the bulk of English Catholicism had been confined to the Northern and Western counties of the country here popular religion was Catholic and in most ways had been untouched by the reforms of Elizabeth, her father, Henry VIII, and brother, Edward IV. Queen Mary's reign had replenished the, somewhat meagre, reserve of Catholic minded clergy that served the region; the underdevelopment of the parish system in the North (which had been, before the reformation, largely religiously catered for by the great monastic communities) had impeded the penetration of these areas by more modern, and Protestant, ministers and preaching. Instead much of traditionalist practise in the North and West depended on the continuance of a 'seasonal nonconformity'; adhering to the calendar of Saints Days, feasts and fasts which were such a significant feature of the pre reformation church.

The treatment that these traditionalist minded Catholics received from the Elizabethan and Jacobean state was rather different from the image of constant and unremitting persecution promoted by the Jesuit propagandists. Instead, the persecutions of Recusants remained largely financial in nature (although these did become very onerous at times), and could be avoided by the conformity of the recusant to a very formal and minimal level of attendance. Neither Elizabeth nor James were as much interested in religious uniformity as they were concerned with ensuring as level of loyalty which could be measured through formal attendance. Radical Protestant preachers regularly complained about the toleration extended to these 'church papists' .

Elizabeth wished to avoid the reaction which accompanied Edward and Mary's reformist and counter-reformist zeal, and was content to 'outlive' the Marian Priesthood rather than risk a backlash to their wholesale replacement. Instead, far less overt pressures than Mary's bonfires were applied, whether through recusant taxes and the application of the oath of loyalty, in order to prevent Catholics being appointed to office, or the 'fudging' of elements of the Official religion, especially in the Book of Common Prayer of 1559 which allowed for a certain elasticity over crucial elements of the Eucharist, and in the wording of the question of Justification, which could allow more traditionalist and Catholic congregations to coexist with the rest within the National Church. These measures encouraged and allowed the incorporation of many Catholics into Church of England, if only in meeting the formal requirements of membership to avoid recusancy or qualify for office.In many Catholic homes the male head of the household would publicly conform whilst his wife, and other family members, remained Catholic; the reluctance of the authorities to prosecute women for recusancy was well appreciated. Both Elizabethan and Jacobean courts tended to use their anti Catholic Statutes in a very "prudential" manner; designed to be applied only when necessary against real threats, rather than against 'ordinary' recusants. The main aim of the repression, when it was intensified, was always to frustrate attempts to introduce the new, and more aggressive, Tridentine Catholicism which was being smuggled in from the seminary schools and missions of European counter- reformation. Even seasonal nonconformity was treated benignly by a state which discriminated between the imported and the indigenous.

 

The Reforms in Catholic theology made at the Council of Trent were designed to remove the weaknesses within Catholicism which made it vulnerable to the criticism of protestant reformers and in their construction and application they clearly show the shift in power and influence within Catholicism as the humanist philosophy of Renaissance Italy was supplanted by the aggressive determinism of Conquistador Spain, embodied in the militarist religious of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.

In England, the first priority was to attempt to stem the drift of Catholics into conformity, the Papal Bull, Regnan in Excelsis was an opening shot of this more aggressive and confident Catholicism ; in excommunicating Elizabeth and relieving all her subjects from the responsibility of fealty toward her, the Papacy wished to support those who had risen against Elizabeth in 1569 during the 'Rising of the Earls', but it severely misread the reality of the rising's causes which, although couched in religious terms, were far more a response to the Tudor states centralising impulses threatening the local power bases of the Northern aristocracy. The Bull, which was over a year late for any effect intended for the support of the rebels, had the effect, as protestant propagandists were not slow to point out, of declaring that all Catholics who wished to remain loyal to the Pope could only be so as traitors to the Queen. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre provided for English Protestants a clear warning of allowing a Catholic return to power would entail.

Traditional 'survivalist' English Catholics tried to square the necessity of conforming to the demands of the Elizabethan and Jacobean state and their loyalty to Catholicism by arguing that such a confrontational course would destroy the catholic community's ability to sustain their priesthood thus condemning the church to death. The emphasis on the spiritual importance of suffering and Martyrdom as a price necessary for salvation which rested at the heart of the new muscular interpretation of Catholicism made the attempts at conciliation by the traditionalist communities incomprehensible to the Jesuits. Jesuit teaching transformed membership of the Catholic Church from a Universalist church to an exclusivist one. The idea of a 'Universal and Catholic Church' within which all were accommodated was abandoned and in its place an exclusive identification of true Catholicism, outside of which the majority were damned and only the true believers saved. Where the protestant reformers replaced the pre reformation doctrine of justification by faith and works with one of faith alone and their trust in being counted among Gods Elect, the Jesuits effectively developed a new justification, where belief and absolute obedience to the Church's tenets would alone bring salvation. The insistence of the seminarians and the Jesuits in the total separation of Catholics from compliance with the Church of England brought them into sharp disagreement with the traditionalist Catholics.

The small number of Jesuit missionaries' active in England in the late Elizabethan /early Jacobean did not diminish the influence that they had upon the manorial Catholics; the seminaries, such as that at Douai and the English school in Rome, which trained priests for the Manorial Catholics, imbibed in them Jesuitical principles. Thus it is not unreasonable to treat both, secular, seminary trained, priests and regular, Jesuit, missionaries as having generally the same theological/ideological position.

At the heart of the disputes between the different Catholic communities was a fundamental difference over the nature of Catholicism and of how England was expected to return to the 'True Faith'. The 'survivalists' remained universal in their conception of the Church; England may have strayed, yet it may still be returned to the bosom of the church. Just as their fortunes had changed when Edward was succeeded by Mary, a new change of monarch perhaps with a tolerant, or even Catholic, Stuart King, would see England's return to Rome under the principle 'cuius regio, eius religio'. In the meantime, whatever compromises have to be made in order to keep their faith alive are justifiable; as the worst thing that could happen was for Catholics to become associated in the populace's mind with treason and servility to foreign courts.

For the Jesuits, England was lost; it had gone far too long outside of the Church to ever voluntarily return to the rule of Rome, only force, a new crusade, could bring the heretical English back to Catholicism; thus it was a true Catholic's duty to assist in any and all acts which would aid and assist the invasion and overthrow of the Protestant State. It would be mistaken to suppose that either approach had reconciled itself to the continued existence of English Catholicism as a Minority sect, both expected England to eventually to be reconciled with Rome.

Haigh has considered that the role of the Jesuits was an entirely pastoral one, a view which has been strongly challenged . Whilst it is true that the Jesuits were catering exclusively to an already Catholic audience, rather than actively seeking out converts from among the Protestant the nature of the Jesuit mission makes claims of a passive, or pastoral, intent untenable. It is not necessary to accept that all Jesuits and covert priests were actively involved in plotting insurrection and regicide to note that the intransigence of counter- reformation theology inevitably, and deliberately, brought themselves and their flock into conflict with the Protestant state.

Whilst in the North and west of England Catholicism retained its pre-reformation popular character closer to the heart of royal power in London in the South and East it became largely confined to the homes and manors of the older aristocracy, who had gained their power and influence before the dissolution of the monasteries and thus did not owe their wealth to Tudor largesse. Here proximity to the continent allowed for a more ready access to the new ideas that were being developed in response to the European wide threat of Protestantism. Independent in wealth and with considerable local power bases, these gentry Catholics could afford to pay for their own personal priests and had the space and influence to hide them from the purview of the authorities. From being used to having a prominent say in the running of the state, they now found themselves shut out of the corridors of power in favour of more 'politically reliable' parvenu gentry, merchants and foreign schismatics. With avenues to education and advancement closed to them the sons of the old gentry journeyed to the continent; to serve in the armies of the counter- reformation or to study in the seminarian and Jesuit schools.

Without wishing to overstretch modern parallels, there are certain comparisons observable in the development of modern Western Jihadiism; a small and self isolated minority within a larger minority community replacing a universalist theology with an exclusivist one, in which violence and Martyrdom are sanctioned and extolled as religious duties, sending its sons to foreign schools to train to become the ideologues and fighters in an international Holy War.

The prospect of the end of Elizabeth's reign concentrated the minds of both Catholics and Protestants. Many of the traditionalists began to expect a more sympathetic treatment from James. Alongside attempts to gain James' support for official toleration, they made protestations of loyalty to a Jacobean monarchy (with the inference that their protestant adversaries would be less loyal) For the gentry Catholics, the thawing of relations between the papacy and Elizabeth in the last years of her reign and the reestablishment of a less confrontational diplomacy with the Spain crown, threatened the rationale of enforced conciliation which had justified for the recusants their repression and isolation. Without a prospective invasion and with a new Protestant monarch with new policies which further encouraged conformity, a section the Catholic Gentry began to adopt an extreme version of 'cuius regio, eius religio', believing that the violent removal of James, and his replacement with his more pliant, and Catholic, daughter, the 9 year old Elizabeth could return England to the Catholic faith, or possibly more preferable, that the resultant civil war would force a Spanish intervention.

James disappointed the hopes placed upon him that he would grant full toleration for Catholics, but those hopes were always over optimistic, as ruler of Calvinist Scotland as well as new king of Protestant England, the granting of legal toleration for English Catholics would have created problems throughout his unified realms. However his informal tolerance toward Catholicism, through non enforcement of recusancy, and later benign tolerance of Early Arminian thought created a more conducive environment within the Church of England for the traditionalist minded old Catholics alienated by the dogmatism and exclusivity of the Jesuits, and repelled by the Identification of Catholicism with treason and regicide. Sir Henry James' rejection of Catholicism whilst in Rome in 1606 in shock at the revelations of the Gunpowder plot showed how the association of recusancy with treason widened the gulf between the Jesuits and the 'survivalist' laity. In the period after the plots exposure there was a massive increase of conformities, as erstwhile recusants reacted to the revelations, or to the accompanied repression.

The policies of the Elizabethan and Jacobean monarchies permitted traditional Catholics to adopt a formal conformity without demanding much more than loyalty to the state in return. In itself this did inevitably mean that the majority of traditionalists would adopt the Church of England and not remain a level of loyalty toward the Papacy- it was the refusal of the Jesuits and seminary priests to allow for any form of cooperation with the state no matter what the cost, that broke the possibility of the development of a network of sympathisers of Tridentine Catholicism amongst the traditionalist community. Instead the Plot, and its failure, revealed the isolation and weakness of the Gentry Catholics. The threat that they constituted to Protestantism in England was effectively negated and from then on concerns about 'Popish Plots' would be directed not at the schemes of Catholics but instead of developments within the Church of England.

Fawkes and his co conspirators were certain that they were representative of their Catholic community; however that community was one which, through its ideological intransigence and theological purity, had broken its ties with wider English popular Catholicism and had become an isolated aristocratic cult, as exclusive as any Calvinist Brethren. It is an irony that the counter- reformation, which rearmed and revitalised European Catholicism on the continent, in England had the effect of alienating the mass of existing English Catholics and assisting in their reconciliation with the National Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Bossy, John. The English Catholic Community 1570-1850 (London 1975)

 

Carrafiello, Michael, J. English Catholicism and the Jesuit mission of 1580-81 the Historical Journal 37 4 (1994)

 

Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional religion in England 1400-1580 (London2005)

 

Haigh C. The fall of a Church or a rise of a Sect? Post reformation Catholicism in England the Historical Review vol 21 no. 1 (March 1978)

 

Lake, Peter and Questier, Michael. The Anti- Christ's Lewd Hat: Protestants Papists and Players in post Reformation England (London 2002)

R. Po-chia Hsia
The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770 (Cambridge 1998)

 Questier, Michael C. 'like locusts all over the world': Conversion, Indoctrination and the Society of Jesus in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England in McCoog (Ed.) The Reckoned Expense: Edmond Campion and the Early English Jesuits (Oxford 1986)

 

Questier, Michael C. Conversion Politics and religion in England 1580-1625 (Cambridge 1996)

Questier, Michael C. Catholicism and community in early modern England: Politics, aristocratic privilege and religion, C. 1550-1640 (Cambridge 2006)

 

C. Walsham, Alexandra Church Papists:
Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early modern England (London 1993).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

these three posts

These three posts are essays I have written recently and am pleased with, any, and all, comments and criticisms are of course welcome. they are all in various ways concerned with the way in the politics of medieval, and early modern, religious movements have been interpreted by modern historians. I have tried to overcome the habit of historians, whether marxist or otherwise, who have imposed modern attitudes upon people and movements in very different times and circumstances. I have tended to describe this approach as 'being temporally sensitive', a clunky expression but the best I can come up with at present.

"The problem of Heresy was a creation of a developing, empire-building Church. Discuss.

The generally accepted model of the development of the medieval church describes how the reforms, which were began by Gregory VII and continued by his successors, liberated the church from the control of local princes and in the process amassed such earthly wealth and temporal power in the hands of the church to make it richer and more powerful than any individual earthly prince. The motor of the Gregorian reforms were the Monastic orders; they strove to return the church to its original state of purity- free from the taint of the corrupt world and in doing so they extended the austere rule of their own Order on to the entire church. The ideology upon which the reformers built their "Papal monarchy" was, like their Monasteries, hierarchical and doctrinally rigid, and hostile to dissent.

There is a problem that confronts any historian who attempts to understand the Medieval mind and its relationship to religion; When a historian investigates a subject he brings to it his own perspective; whatever his intention a historian cannot entirely escape from reading evidence through the lens of his own biases, mores, politics and, not least, knowledge of 'how the story plays out'. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as current interests can stimulate new directions, new avenues for historical study and new questions for historians; for example, the growth of the women's liberation movement in the 1960s and 70s stimulated an expansion in interest among historians in the previously hidden, and overlooked, role of women within history. As Christopher Hill observed, history has two meanings: "the past as we believe it to have existed, and second the past as we attempt to reconstruct in our writings." Historians, who attempt to tease out the stories of heretics who left little or no record of their own, have to do so from the archives of their masters and inquisitors have to be especially aware that the same evidence in different hands can be interpreted in widely different ways. Hill noted that "...the questions which each generation of historians asks inevitably reflect the interests of that generation." However he cautions "It is right and proper that historians should ask new questions, and such questions may well be stimulated by happenings in our own society. I see no harm in this so long as our answers do not derive from the present."

Thus a historian should beware of ascribing modern forms and attitudes to very different historical conditions. Just as Protestant martyrologists attempted to discover in every outbreak of medieval religious dissent a proto-reformation in potentia; so historians have found their own worldviews transplanted onto deciphering the meaning of medieval heresy, there is a temptation to insert anachronistically modern and materialist interpretations of class and gender and graft them on to the medieval experience. There are four identifiable components in heretical movements which fall into this trap;

1. The "privilege of poverty". There is a common assumption that heresy springs directly from dissatisfaction at the discrepancy between the material wealth and temporal power of the Roman Church and the vision of the brotherhood of simplicity and poverty envisioned in the Gospels and the chronicles of the Church fathers. There was a real hunger throughout Christendom, in expectation of the coming Millennium, to reject the sinful and corrupt world and return to an idealised apostolic existence- but his was not an impulse which led to heresy. Despite the occasional discomfort that individual churchmen may have felt at criticism at their official or individual wealth, the church as a whole displayed a surprisingly accommodating approach toward mendicants and "poverty of Christ" movements; for example the sympathetic attitude of local churchmen to the early activities of the Waldensians, and following their denunciation, the opening of alternative routes for former Waldensians through the 'Poor Catholics'. Monasteries and other institutions adopted and provided protection toward, beguinages.
   

   Each new development within the church itself were driven by enthusiasm for attaining the ideal of poverty; there was a profusion of new mendicant orders founded in the 13^th century, and these were immensely popular across society. These were formed in protest at the worldliness of the Cistercians, who were themselves formed because it was felt older Benedictine orders were not applying rules on poverty strictly enough.
   

   The apogee of officially sanctioned was the order of St. Francis of Assisi; the intensity and austerity of the Franciscans, although gaining Papal sanction in 1209, so disturbed authorities across Europe that two Franciscan envoys were imprisoned when entering England in 1228 until they were able to prove their orthodoxy.
   

   The medieval heresies were critical of the wealth of the Church, and advocated a simpler apostolically derived path, but this was not a source of heresy, rather it was a general tide throughout the religious life of the time.
   

2. Mysticism. As Western Capitalist imperialism expanded across the world it was accompanied by an idealistic reaction which was repelled by the science and rationalism (and growing democracy) of the age. This reaction was fascinated by the esoteric and mystical religions of the east and embraced (carefully sanitised) elements of them. The Medieval heresies, combining mysticism, links with exotic eastern sects, and oppressed by state and church because of their access to a inner secret knowledge, became a part of a wider new age mythology which has in recent years has multiplied massively through the medium of the internet.
   

   However, the idea that there was something unique about the Mysticism of the Cathars, or the heresy of the free spirit or any other heresy which set them apart from mainstream Christianity. Elizabeth Petroff describes mysticism as "... the direct experience of the real, an unmediated experience of God". In the Middle ages there was little differentiation made between the spiritual and profane worlds, the realms of God and Satan were as real, if not more so, than that of Man. Mysticism was a central aspect of the Medieval Church; In a world where men and women had little or no control over their environment the search for signs and portents and their interpretation was a central part of Medieval Christianity and prophesying seers and visionaries were to be commonly found living in hermitages attached to many churches.
   

   
    

3. Pacifism. Another factor highlighted by some historians as being a particular feature of Medieval heresy has been pacifism; both Cathars, and especially, Waldensians have been notable for their pacifism; the Waldensians rejection of Church authority was partially a result of the church's willingness to countenance, and endorse, violence and war. However here also not everything was so clear. The church had played a major role in attempting to halt the arbitrary violence and chaos of the early middle ages. The peace of god movement which spread rapidly across France and Germany in the 10^th and 11^th centuries was designed to set strict limits over who could, and who could not be the target of violence, and placed nearly all Christians under the protection of the Church. This movement, that galvanized popular support for church reform, made all war between Christians subject to papal anathema. Even conflicts that received papal sanction; such as Duke William's invasion of England in 1066, which sailed under a papal banner, were compelled to do penance for the Christian blood spilled (the building of Battle Abbey was William's own contrition for Hastings). The declaration of Crusade did not mean the abandonment of the Pax Dei; Urban II extended the peace across all Christendom, even as he declared Holy war on the Infidel.
   

   
    

4. Female expression of Spirituality. The significant and visible role of women in Medieval heretical movements have led historians to see in the heretical movements an expression of female spirituality denied to women by a misogynistic church. It is undoubtedly true that the medieval Church was an institution drenched in distrust of the female sex. However despite this there were attempts within the Church to open opportunities for women to play an active religious role. Robert of Abrissel attracted large numbers of women and men to his wandering preaching and established Fontevraud Abbey in 1101 as a joint monastery with buildings for both men and women. The close associate of Francis of Assisi, Claire established the Order of Poor Ladies, a women's monastic order modelled on St. Francis' austere rule. Outside of the closed orders avenues for women's spirituality were limited but not completely closed. Beguines, though associated with the heresy of the free spirit by Marguerite Porete, were adopted by Religious orders, protected by local lords and city communes and received Papal approval from Gregory IX in 1283. The church did attempt to provide women with outlets for expressing their spirituality but the church could not step out of the greater society around it in which there was no role, no room, for a woman who wasn't under the control of a man; husband, father master or priest.
   

If the desire for Poverty and distain for the material world, mysticism, and striving for Universal peace (amongst Christians) were all central to the practice of the Catholic Church, and, despite its limitations, there were a few open doors to women within the church, what then was the essential point of difference between the Catholic Church and the Medieval heresies?

Catholicism was a Universalist faith; at its heart was the conviction that every Christian who in accepting the sacraments, confessing their sins, and doing penance would in the Last Days be resurrected, and accepted into the kingdom of Heaven and gain eternal life.

A common feature of the heresies was a route to salvation separate from that offered by the church and was exclusive to the elite, of those initiated into the secrets of the cult. The perfecti of the Cathars and the Barbe of the later Waldensians formed an elite already guaranteed salvation, and only through them could the converti reach spiritual perfection. The heresy of the Free Spirit also had its own special elite, of adepts who having attained the sixth stage of spiritual development were above all concerns of sin.

This narrative of universal salvation, but only through the prism of the Holy Catholic Church, or, the exclusive revelation and salvation of the sects is broken in the 14^th century. The simple message of Wycliffe and the Lollards who gained inspiration from his writing of offered the possibility of salvation for all through an individual relationship with God through study of scripture. While the Lutheran and Calvinist vision of predetermination may have been more restrictive, more exclusive, than any Cathar Perfecti or Waldensian Barbe yet the Protestant insistence on an individual relationship between man and his God, and justification by faith alone removed both the need for a institutional intermediary to the divine nor a mystical elite.

As with all such ideas there is a danger of over extending the argument; there were class antagonisms in the medieval world, which sometimes erupted into violent uprisings which specifically targeted the wealth of the church. These movements were often religiously inspired, although the religion that inspired them was not always heretical; the Fratelli in Northern Italy were motivated by a radical version of Fransicanism, the Peasants revolt of 1381 was aroused by Preachers, such as John Ball, who employed Wycliffan ideas (Wyclif may have been later condemned, but at that time was comfortably ensconced at the heart of the English establishment), the Anabaptists adapted wholesale Luther's theological criticisms of the Church and attempted to apply them practically (much to Luther's horror!).

There were those who were condemned as heretics by Magistrates and prelates who were venal, fearful or ignorant, and whose only crime was to attempt to apply the church's teaching sincerely and practically; there were mystics whose visions fell afoul of the Inquisitors, Pacifists who were hunted down and women religious who were denounced purely for the fact of their gender and the fear it engendered in this misogynistic age. Yet none of these, in themselves, constituted a heresy in the eyes of the medieval Church.

The medieval Catholic Church was constantly developing and seeking to extend its authority over all Christians and over all aspects of their lives because the church considered itself the only conduit for the salvation of all mankind. It came into conflict with the heresies of the age, both because of the cults' assertion that they offered an alternative path to salvation and also that salvation was exclusive to the elite. The Catholic Church was universal and monopolistic; the cults were narrow and exclusive.

 

 

 

 

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Hill, C. A Nation of Change and Novelty London 1993

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA 'Franciscan order' at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06217a.htm accessed on7/11/09

 

 

MEDIEVAL SOURCEBOOK Reinarius Saccho, Of the Sects of the Modern Heretics 1254
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/waldo2.html accessed 7/11/09

 

Graham-Leigh, E. The Cathars: Heretics who can inspire us today http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=7432

 

Why were lepers excluded from medieval society?

Medieval European society was an extremely fragile one; unable neither to understand nor to protect itself in any significant way from the effects of either natural disaster or disease, and constantly under threat from the random violence of that society's own warrior elite.

This awareness of the fragility of medieval society lent impetus to the veneration of an ideal of an ordered, stable, and static society in which every man and woman had a place and a rank and where everyone, no matter how lowly or exalted, knew the rights and the obligations that their place demanded of them. Each was happy and content with his lot and stayed where he was put. However this was an unworkable and unachievable ideal; the reality of the Middle Ages was of a society that was more mobile, dynamic and with far more social mobility than is usually believed, and Journeymen, pilgrims, tinkers, gypsies, mendicants, beggars, entertainers, merchants and many others thronged the roads of Western Europe bringing to the communities that they visited news of the wider world, rare goods and services and, occasionally, trouble to be moved on.

Even if the idealised stable community could have been attained it could it could have done little when confronted with the manmade and natural tragedies that constantly threatened to overwhelm it. The only solution was to attempt to force those who stood outside to take their proper position within society.

In this world the leper was triply an outsider: often a wanderer, compelled to live by begging, her own body seemingly in revolt against herself, and her fate caused by God's wrath at her sins. The leper should have been the consummate figure of medieval loathing and fear. The medieval world was a place which was full of superstition, ignorance and cruelty, yet the medieval experience of leprosy was far more complex and subtle than just the fear that the leper might instil as an outsider.

Robert Moore's book, 'The formation of a persecuting society' treats the fate of the lepers as being a part of a wider change within medieval society in which Christendom began to define itself as exclusive and intolerant of all dissenters. His account of the lepers leans heavily upon an anachronistic account of the medieval attitude towards lepers which was created in the latter half of the nineteenth century, by western European physicians who, whilst working in the new colonies of the burgeoning European empires were encountering leprosy (mycobacterium leprae, or Hanson's disease), and were attempting to find historical justifications for the eugenic and social Darwinist polices which they advocated to counter both this disease in the Empire, and the perceived weaknesses within the populations of their own countries. The myth of a determined society, which through the complete isolation and exclusion of the leper was able to defeat the disease, matched closely to their own agenda but not the reality of the far more complex and sympathetic treatment that medieval lepers received.

The leper was simultaneously a figure that might instil fear but also compassion and charity, the leper in the abstract may be seen as a threatening outsider, but in reality as long as leprosy remained a living disease, the diseased individual would be a son, a father, a sister or a daughter- in other words, a part of the community.

The central ideological bulwark of the medieval world was the Church: its approach to the leper was similarly contradictory. In the Old Testament Leprosy was an affliction visited upon disobedient wives (Numbers 12) and insolent kings (Chronicles 26), whilst in the New Testament, Jesus associated himself closely with lepers, embracing them and curing them and, in the midst of his Passion, becoming Christus quasi Leprosus, taking on the likeness of a leper.

Leprosy was a disease that was directly linked to moral degeneracy; the church linked each separate disease to different sins, and imbalances in the humours that were believed to regulate the body. In leprosy's case these were sins of anger, envy and avarice, the sins which were punished by being made leprous in the Bible.

However Christ's association with lepers in the New Testament led the church to see in the suffering of the leper a direct relation to the sufferings that all mortals would suffer after their deaths whilst being purged of their sins in purgatory. The humble leper who meekly accepts the trials sent by God became a holy figure and lepers were held to be paupers Christi in the same way as Monks and hermits were and in their leper houses to form a quasi religious community. Job's story in the Bible, humbly accepting the travails and trials visited upon him by God and devil became in the Middle Ages an exemplar of the ideal of a humble acceptance of adversity and there are numerous accounts of religious figures who not only accepted without demur contracting leprosy, such as St. Alice the Leper but actively sought out infection as a means of proving their devotion.

The leper seemed became a 'fashionable cause' amongst the privileged of the age; Matilda, wife King Henry I kissed the sores of lepers as did Philip the Pious of France and Theobald of Blois, and donations to the building and maintenance of leper houses were considered particularly useful in offsetting the sins of the benefactors. Matthew Paris estimated that here were 19000 leper houses across Europe and over 100 in England; however one should be cautious before inferring that this profusion of charitable provision was evidence of large numbers of lepers in need of seclusion from society, At St. Giles Hospital in Norwich there was a master, 8 chaplains, 2 clerks in holy orders, 7 choristers, 2 sisters... and eight Lepers!

It has been suggested that only those who contracted the disease and were of noble birth were considered to be virtuous, although they may have assisted in the acceptance of the idea of the holy leper, much of the religious adoration of lepers, for example the embracing of lepers by Philip the Pious long predated Baldwin IV of Jerusalem or the Leper Knights of the order of St. Lazarus.

The medical knowledge of the medieval world was extremely limited; like the image of heaven and the ideal of society and the ancient Greek idea of the elements the combination of which made up all of the physical world- Earth, water, air and fir. The health of the body was believed to depend upon the maintenance of a temperate balance of coldness, wetness, heat, and dryness. Within the body of man was believed to be four humours, the mixture of which would determine both health and temperament- the melancholic was cold dry and earthy, the phlegmatic cold and wet, like water, the choleric, hot and dry, like fire, and the sanguine hot, damp and airy. A preponderance of one humour over all others would result in disease. Moral behaviour and the eating of foods which were considered to contain the qualities lacking in the afflicted person were the preferred remedies offered by medieval physicians. Despite the severe limitations of medieval medical knowledge the physicians did recognise at least that leprosy was contagious, a fact that was missed by the 'scientific' social Darwinists of the 19^th century who did so much to rewrite the history of medieval lepers.

It was this recognition of the contagious nature of leprosy that was the real reason for the exclusion of lepers from wider society; however the 19^th century impression of the nature of the leper houses as being austere, enclosed, and remote virtual prisons was far from the reality for most such houses. Firstly, the Idea of leper houses being remote was based on a misconception of what was meant by being outside in medieval terms. Leper houses were situated in liminal positions, outside of city walls, or at crossroads and on untillable lands but not on the whole in remote places which would have been impractical for the provision of the residents. When the incidence of leprosy had fallen to such an extent that the leper houses were lying empty they were converted into alms houses and hospitals, uses that would not have been practical if situated far from civilisation. Neither were the conditions in which the residents' were kept austere and penitentiary; although the physicians attempted to cure or alleviate the symptoms of leprosy by altering the diet and thus the balance of the humours, the provisioning of lepers was not miserly- the abbot of Reading provided for each resident of the hospital of St. Mary Magdelen to:

"...receive as a daily supply half a loaf of bread and half a gallon of middling beer (cervisie mediocris); also 5d. a month for buying meat. In Lent the bread was to be of barley. The scale of clothing was generous; each one was supplied with hood, tunic and cloak, and with two woollen vests and under-linen. The hood or cape was to contain three ells of cloth, the tunic three, and the cloak two and a quarter; these were supplied as often as required. Each inmate also received ten yards of linen yearly, and one yard of serge for shoes. Fifteen yards of linen were supplied every second year for covering the tables."

Neither were lepers treated as prisoners inside the leper houses, instead they were encouraged to travel to sites of pilgrimage in the search of a miraculous cure, and were able to come and go from their houses with the permission of the house. The houses were organised on a religious model with strict rules which if broken would lead to expulsion from the house:

The rules of the house were strict. For incontinence or striking a brother the punishment was expulsion; for defamation or disobedience to the master, fasting on bread and water in the midst of the hall, the culprit's portion of meat and drink being placed on the table and distributed by the master. No one was allowed to leave the house or stand at the gate without a companion. Anyone desirous of leave of absence for one, two, or three nights had to obtain permission of the master and of the whole convent, but if for longer the master's consent was necessary, and then only with a companion. The brothers were to prepare to rise at the first ringing of the bell, and when it rang for the third time to enter the church. If anyone found anything on the premises it was not to be concealed, but shown to the brethren and placed in the common fund; but if it was found outside it might be considered the finder's if he so willed. Alms given by anyone to an inmate on the roadside for infirmity were to go to the common purse. No one was to enter the wash-house without a companion, nor was anyone to send the servant of the house any long distance without leave.

Some of the evidence presented to support a persecuting approach toward lepers depends upon a particular interpretation of evidence, for example, the third Lateran council is presented by Moore as a defining moment in the construction of a persecuting society. However Colin Morris reads the council as ensuring that lepers who were living within leper houses were provided with churches and cemeteries of their own.

Most notoriously was the case of the 'Leper's Mass' a liturgy allegedly intoned over the newly diagnosed leper cutting them off from the rest of humanity and the communion of the Church. Cited repeatedly in histories of Leprosy, this has been exposed as a 16^th Century innovation by Carole Rawcliffe which there is no evidence of ever being used by the Church

While there is no doubt that there is an increase in the efficacy of central state and church power in the period after 1000AD, Moore is mistaken in seeing this as being driven by an urge to exclude those who failed to conform; Catholicism, as the universal Church, considered itself the only route to salvation, and that to stand outside of the embrace of the church was to court eternal damnation. As shepherd the duty of the Church and of its loyal servants in the state was to save those members of the flock who stray; the improvements in the ability of the state and the church to police the general population were aimed at enforcing inclusion, not exclusion. Moore attempts to impose an anachronistically modern interpretation on the motives of "the princes and prelates" who he describes as being the architects of his 'persecuting society'; they were not motivated by greed for pecuniary gain nor lust for power, but in order save the transgressor from Hell. Reaching for scare stories about lepers may fill the pages of horrible histories but teach us nothing about the real fate of the leper and those who lived around them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Grigsby, B.L. Pestilence in medieval and early modern English literature London 2004

McCall A. The medieval underworld London 2006

 

Moore, R. I. The formation of a persecuting Society: Authority and deviance in Western Europe 950-1250AD Oxford 2007

Morris, C. The papal monarchy: The western Church from 1050 to 1250 Oxford 1991

Rawcliffe, C. Leprosy in Medieval England London 2006

Richards, the medieval leper and his northern heirs London 2000

Online

'Hospitals: Reading', A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 2 (1907), pp. 97-99. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40075 Date accessed: 07 December 2009