Our Days Are Numbered

How is 2010 like 1210? Let’s get medieval on yo' ass…

In 1210, there was an ongoing crusade against heretics, that is, people who choose to see the divine differently. The Greek at the root of the word heresy means “choice.” In what was to become the southwest of France, the authorities decided that there would be no freedom of worship. No heretical sanctuary was allowed at Toulouse, which was, for pilgrims departing for Santiago de Compostela,... Ground Zero.

In 1210, there were jurisdictional disputes, the keystone of the Middle Ages. King’s courts versus bishop’s courts versus baronial interests versus town charters. You couldn’t, say, try a priest in a lay court, no matter what his crime was. And you certainly couldn’t raid a conclave of clergymen in the Low Countries looking for pedophiles.

In 1210, a move was afoot to form special courts, secret courts, where customary methods would be jettisoned in the service of getting convictions. Torture would be used. The rack, the thumb-screw and waterboarding. Within a generation, the inquisition was born.

In 1210, the schools of the eleventh century were forming themselves into universities. More money, more order, more control. The great book burnings began in 1240.

In 1210, the barons of England were increasingly dissatisfied with royal rule. They were soon to draw up a Magna Carta, which, depending on how you look at it, was a babystep toward the establishment of Parliament or an affirmation of local rights and customs against central authority and taxation. There was no tea served at Runnymede, but everyone had the right to bear arms.

In 1210, Western merchants were busy peddling precious items looted in the Crusader sack of Constantinople six years earlier. The king of France would erect the Sainte Chapelle in Paris to house some of the stolen goodies. The traffic was discreet yet frenetic. A similar trade, this time in looted Mesopotamian antiquities, would spring up many centuries later, but only after a similar shock-and-awe attack on another eastern capital.

In 1210, being a warrior was considered a noble calling, a type of service. And the use of mercenaries was on the rise.

In 1210, scapegoats were sought and usually found for the calamity du jour. Preachers and marketplace demagogues already had a long history of using fear to stir up hatred.

In 1210, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the elites and their botched crusade of 1204. In 1212, thousands of young men and women, unlettered and exalted, would march in what came to be known, misleadingly, as the Children’s Crusade. They were idealistic and spectacularly delusional: the sea was supposed to part for them and allow them to slam-dunk the liberation of Jerusalem. Instead, they boarded ships at Marseille and Genoa – and were turned over to slave-traders. Those that survived became a underclass, far from home, betrayed. Those that didn’t, died.

1210, 2010, 1200, 2001… when we live is a lottery.

And some of the prizes remain the same.