Jenatsch's Axe
Jenatsch's Axe

Author: Randolph Conrad Head

Publisher: University Rochester Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 9781580462761

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During the turbulent events of Europe's Thirty Years' War, both ruthlessness and adaptability were crucial ingredients for success. In this engaging volume, Randolph C. Head traces the career of an extraordinarily adaptable and ruthless figure, George Jenatsch (1596-1639). Born a Protestant pastor's son, Jenatsch's career took him from the clergy to the military to the nobility. A passionate Calvinist in his youth, he converted to Catholicism and prudence as his power grew. A native speaker of the Romansh language, he crossed the boundaries of language and local loyalty in his service to France, Venice, and his own people. Violence marked every turning point of his life. After fleeing the "Holy Massacre" of Protestants in the Valtellina in 1620, Jenatsch helped assassinate the powerful Pompeius von Planta, in 1621, using an axe. He killed his commanding officer in a duel in 1629, and his own life ended in a tavern in 1639 when he was murdered -- with an axe -- by a man dressed as a bear. After his death, myth took over. Rumors spread that Jenatsch was killed by the same axe that he had wielded on von Planta -- and from there the story only got better, culminating in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's celebrated 1876 novel, Jurg Jenatsch. This study meticulously traces the social boundaries that characterized seventeenth-century Europe -- region, religion, social state, and kinship -- by analyzing a distinctive life that crossed them all. Professor Randolph C. Head teaches European History at the University of California, Riverside and is the author of Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons.

Strange Ways to Die in History
Strange Ways to Die in History

Author: Ben Gazur

Publisher: Pen and Sword History

Published: 2024-04-04

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1399045563

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Death comes for us all in the end. But it does not always come in a way you might expect. Throughout history there have been people who have suffered extraordinary, unusual, and downright weird demises. In Strange Ways to Die in History you will find out about the true stories behind unlikely stories of bizarre accidents, assassinations, and misadventures. Did a playwright really die from a tortoise being dropped on his head by an eagle? Why did an English vicar end up being eaten by lions? And what are the chances of fatality from falling into a toilet? Looking at the lives that came before the deaths reveals some of histories most fascinating individuals. Some of those examined are well known. Some are remembered only for the odd way they departed this life. Some have been forgotten entirely. Sometimes how a person dies, and how history has recorded the event, can tell us a lot about society and how we remember. This book uncovers eye-witnesses to the deaths described and contemporary reports from those who were left behind.

JÃ1?4rg Jenatsch
JÃ1?4rg Jenatsch

Author: Carl Ferdinand Meyer

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2010-10-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1446184455

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Jürg Jenatsch (1596-1638) was one of the most controversial figures of the Thirty Years War (1618'1648), preacher, soldier, statesman, a traitor and heretic to some, a patriot and saviour to others. In Swiss history he became the man who pitted his wits against the mighty Richelieu and the Crown of Spain, playing one against the other and rescuing his country from foreign occupation.C.F. Meyer's historical but timeless novel of 1897 tells his story with unique insights into the man and the turbulent times he lived in.The story of the axe is found in chronicles written within weeks of his death. Jenatsch's body was exhumed in 1959, his skull split and remnants of his bloodied clothes still on him. Only recently have official protocols of the incident come to light, naming Bartolomi Wirtsch as the murderer, a member of the Haltenstein brotherhood, closely associated with the Von Plantas.

Assassins’ Deeds
Assassins’ Deeds

Author: John Withington

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2020-11-05

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1789143527

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Assassins have been killing the powerful and famous for at least three thousand years. Personal ambition, revenge, and anger have encouraged many to violent deeds, like the Turkish sultan who had nineteen of his brothers strangled or the bodyguards who murdered a dozen Roman emperors. More recently have come new motives like religious and political fanaticism, revolution and liberation, with governments also getting in on the act, while many victims seem to have been surprisingly careless: Abraham Lincoln was killed after letting his bodyguard go for a drink. So, do assassinations work? Drawing on anecdote, historical evidence, and statistical analysis, Assassins’ Deeds delves into some of history’s most notorious acts, unveiling an intriguing cast of characters, ingenious methods of killing, and many unintended consequences.

1635: The Papal Stakes
1635: The Papal Stakes

Author: Eric Flint

Publisher: Baen Publishing Enterprises

Published: 2012-10-15

Total Pages: 827

ISBN-13: 1618249568

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#15 in the multiple best-selling Ring of Fire Series. It's springtime in the Eternal City, 1635. But it's no Roman holiday for uptimer Frank Stone and his pregnant downtime wife, Giovanna. They're in the clutches of would be Pope Cardinal Borgia, with the real Pope¾Urban VII¾on the run with the renegade embassy of uptime Ambassador Sharon Nichols and her swashbuckling downtime husband, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz. Up to their necks in papal assassins, power politics, murder, and mayhem, the uptimers and their spouses need help and they need it quickly. Special rescue teams¾including Harry Lefferts and his infamous Wrecking Crew¾converge on Rome to extract Frank and Gia. And an uptime airplane is on its way to spirit the Pope to safety before Borgia's assassins can find him. It seems that everything is going to work out just fine in sunny Italy. Until, that is, everything goes wrong. Now, whether they are prisoners in Rome or renegades protecting a pope on the run, it's up to the rough and ready can do attitude of Grantville natives to once again escape the clutches of aristocratic skullduggery and ring in freedom for a war torn land. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Rituality and Social (Dis)Order
Rituality and Social (Dis)Order

Author: Alessandro Testa

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-29

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1000223728

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Carnival has been described as one of the foundational elements of European culture, bearing an emblematic and iconic status as the festive phenomenon par excellence. Its origins are partly obscure, but its stratified and complex history, rich symbolic diversity, and sundry social configurations make it an exceptional object of cultural analysis. The product of more than 12 years of research, this book is the first comparative historical anthropology of popular European Carnival in the English language, with a focus on its symbolic, religious, and political dimensions and transformations throughout the centuries. It builds on a variety of theories of social change and social structures, questioning existing assumptions about what folklore is and how cultural gaps and differences take shape and reproduce through ritual forms of collective action. It also challenges recent interpretations about the performative and political dimension of European festive culture, especially in its carnivalesque declension. While presenting and exploring the most important features and characteristics of European pre-modern Carnival and discussing its origins and developments, this thorough study offers fresh evidence and up-to-date analyses about its transversal and long-lasting significance in European societies.