Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 January 3

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January 3

Virgin martyrs

Is there some sort of alternate term, a synonym, for "virgin martyr"? To my surprise, I discovered today that we don't have an article on the concept, and literally nothing links to it except for an article to which I just added a link today. Run a Google search for "virgin martyr"; even after you ignore references to The Virgin Martyr, a play, you'll find plenty of relevant stuff — this isn't something I'm making up, but I can't figure out why the concept is so obscure. Nyttend (talk) 06:03, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Try virgin sacrifice ? I get about the same number of Ghits. StuRat (talk) 06:26, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

But that's different. "Virgin martyr" conveys the sense of "Young Insertnamehere, who took a vow of celibacy, was caught by imperial troops and fed to the lions", while "virgin sacrifice" conveys the sense of "The gods command us to throw a young girl into the volcano. Let's pick Insertname for this honor". Nyttend (talk) 14:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs virgin martyrs! — article content, that is, not your continence. Consecrated virgins need not apply. (But thanks to consecratedvirgins.org for their handy and pocket-size martyrology of "Virgins and Virgin/Martyr Saints of the Early Centuries")

I think it is just those two English words. Checked for alternate terms in virgin and martyr entries in Jones, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion 2e; Cross & Livingstone, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 3e; as well as revised Catholic Encyclopedia and random articles. No synonym in English found.

1913 edition of the the Catholic Encyclopedia has it most often as two words, "virgin and martyr". One occurrence of "virgin, probably martyred", but not a single "martyr, probably virgin". Such Certainty! Reminds me of reading, years ago, the unabridged Golden Legend, that wonderful treasury of their tales.

Anglo-Norman times featured them by the dozen - perhaps reflecting changing marriage mores requiring consent, theoretically granting some women a little more say in partner. In any case, "Among twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman lives of women saints, all except Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt are lives of consecrated virgins, virgin spouses, or virgin martyrs." (p 314 of Wogan-Browne, 1991 "Saints Lives and the Female Reader", Forum for Modern Language Studies 27:4, 314-332). Don't have a link to the article to share (PDF on request to article writer), but can't pass up this summary quote, same source (p. 315):

A typical profile of the female virgin martyr saint in this period runs like this: The virgin is young, beautiful, rich and noble. Her father is part of the pagan establishment, or, if he is absent, his narrative function is encoded in the pagan suitor and/or judge eventually encountered by the virgin. The virgin's mother is usually absent from the virgin's life, either through death, or through passive co-operation with, or secret opposition to, the virgin's father (all options which make the mother invisible in narrative terms). The virgin's counsels are thus her own and she is secretly a Christian. Sooner or later she is approached for marriage, seduction or rape and is persecuted by her tyrannous father and/or lustful suitor for her refusal of these options. They either hand her over to the public-pagan judges or already themselves hold these offices. Desired and tortured by officialdom, the virgin is threatened, then incarcerated, stripped naked, publicly flogged, lacerated, burnt and boiled, and dismembered in some way, as it might be with awls or razor-edged wheels. Her conduct during all this remains impeccable, her ability to reason unimpaired, and, to the frustration of the tyrant, her bearing and her arguments frequently convert his attendant soldiery and populace whom he then has to martyr as well. Finally, when the virgin and God have displayed enough of God's supreme rule over the world, she concludes her passion by going to formal execution by beheading, and then proceeds, with attendant doves and angelic hosts to the court of heaven, to be welcomed into the bower of the greatest and most handsome of bridegrooms, and into top rank at the heavenly court.

Lots more scholarly material. Let's see an article, or die trying! -- Paulscrawl (talk) 07:42, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the extensive response. It seems to have been carried to the extreme in cases like St. Philomena, who was deemed a virgin martyr simply because they found an inscription Peace with you, Philomena, the skeleton of a female teenager, and a small glass phial with vestiges of what was taken to be blood; apparently the concept of her as a virgin martyr happened pretty much immediately, before a nun announced visions of Philomena, and even though marriage of teenage girls was common in ancient Rome. Or see Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand virginal companions, all of whom were beheaded by the Huns at Köln. Nyttend (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

So far as I know, "virgin martyr" is not necessarily a single term, but a composite of "virgin" and "martyr". There are quite a few Christian saints who were said to be both, though, and on that basis the term has seemingly been taken as being a separate term unto itself. It might well be possible to make a List of virgin martyrs as a sublist of List of saints indicating all those who have been officially called virgins and martyrs, or virgin martyrs, though. John Carter (talk) 15:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Could poor Italian peasants during and around Pope Alexander VI's time enter the clergy and rise to bishop?

Reading about the REAL Pope Alexander VI's life makes me think, "Gosh, those peasants must be screwed." Pope Alexander and a couple of other popes of his era were all selected by previous popes, simply because they came from well-connected families. Was there any chance that a humble peasant could enter the clergy and become a bishop? Or did becoming a bishop require making good connections with the aristocratic families? Can a peasant join the clergy at all? Were peasants lower or greater in social status than merchants? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 06:21, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Peasants were certainly lower in social status than merchants, although there would be some overlap. I'd expect that just about anyone could join the clergy, say as a monk or nun, but rising may very well have depended on connections. However, exceptions may have been made for those with exceptional abilities. StuRat (talk) 06:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Citation needed! 71.79.234.132 (talk) 06:53, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

For which part? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

All of it. StuRat gave what appears to be an educated (or not as the case may be) guess instead of a reference. This is supposed to be a reference desk, not the StuRat and Baseball Bugs pedantic guessing page, not that you'd know it by looking though. 76.175.68.81 (talk) 07:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

You question the statement, "Peasants were certainly lower in social status than merchants"??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte came from very humble origins and rose to be a cardinal. Of course, not everyone might care to follow that career path. PiCo (talk) 10:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The IP is quite right to call Sturat out on that little farrago of uneducated speculation. How exactly is a monk or nun supposed to demonstrate "exceptional abilities"? --Viennese Waltz 10:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

• The question is quite oddly biased, since it asks about the mobility of peasants in general, then offers the very brief control of the Papacy by one family as a counter example. StuRat's answer is the standard one from all the history books, basically a truism, that entering the clergy was one of the biggest means of achieving social mobility in the Middle ages.
  

Then out of nowhere we get an anonymous driveby who's never edited the page (or is an obvious sock--take your pick) attacking Stu and Bugs and VW flapping down again to pick at someone's liver, with neither of them offering a source themselves, only a personal attack.

The topic is standardly covered in 9th grade level world history (maybe not any more that attacking the Church and America is all the rage in current curricula, but it was in the 70's and 80's). Simply googling clergy and social mobility gets scores of sources like this. Politely asking Stu to give a reference rather than cackling commands at him might have gotten a better response. Comments like "pedantic" and "uneducated farrago", besides their rudeness aren't even accurate. μηδείς (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

The same way anyone else demonstrates exceptional abilities. For example, a monk employed to add art work to manuscripts might demonstrate artistic talent, or a nun given charge of the accounts at a nunnery might find discrepancies that her predecessor missed. StuRat (talk) 19:47, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The big thing was that the afforded education, and capital and human resources of a monastic order made upward mobility possible for anyone who showed valuable skills. Look at what the existence of the Universities of Bologna and Paris meant for both Western civilization and for the civilization of westerners. μηδείς (talk) 01:20, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I geolocated 76.175.68.81. It appears that the IP is located in California. Oxnard, California. However, one shows up as Los Angeles? In any case, it's somewhere in California. One way I recognize IPs on Wikipedia is that I have a tendency to geolocate unfamiliar IPs and analyze the person's writing style and attitude. It's not a perfect method to identify IPs, but probability and experience tell me that the likelihood of finding two or more persons with a particular writing style in one approximate location at roughly the same time is very rare, making it easier for me to guess a general identity or pattern of behavior of the IP. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 07:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I googled the subject, and this suggests that it's not a simple yes/no answer, as it depends on the order and on other factors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Bear in mind that peasants and merchants, by definition, are in different social strata; peasants were the biggest part of the lower classes, and merchants one of the earliest-established parts of the middle classes. Nyttend (talk) 14:22, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Pope Sixtus IV is described as being from "modest circumstances", though he also had family connections. Pope Adrian VI's father was a carpenter. Peasants were certainly permitted to become monks, and a young man joining a monastic order would have been able to obtain an education and progress within his order. This could eventually lead to a bishopric. Parts of the church, particularly at the higher levels, were dominated by a small number of aristocratic families, but recall that the church was also a large academic and administrative organisation/business. A competent manager with good interpersonal skills and the ability to be useful to his aristocratic colleagues would be able to use the church as a route to advancement. To find a specific example you would have to read the biographies of every bishop, but the path, though difficult, was not closed. RomanSpa (talk) 14:47, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I found Cardinal Tamás Bakócz (1442-1521) whose father was a wagoner (although this book says that he was from "a peasant family"). Not Italian though. An article called Church In the Middle Ages by Simon Newman says; "The leaders of the church came from privileged, wealthy families of the nobility... While the bishops and archbishops hailed from richer families, the priests who oversaw the parishes had very little education and had humble origins. At the bottom of the hierarchy was the village priest who was responsible for caring and ministering to the sick and old, and taught the youth how to read the Bible and how to speak in Latin". The Middle Ages by Morris Bishop (p. 153) says; "The bishops and prelates generally came from the nobility; the parish priests from the peasantry". Thomas Becket was made Archbishop of Canterbury without ever having been a priest, apparently on the grounds that he was the king's best buddy. Alansplodge (talk) 20:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

So, Latin was like a second language in the Middle Ages, eh? It's not really a dead language, because commoners learned how to speak it, as they would do in Roman times! 71.79.234.132 (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, it may well have been just sufficient to say the prayers at the mass. The last book linked in my post tells the story of the story of the Bishop of Durham who was unable to read out the word metropolitanus at his enthronement. It goes on to say that the parish priests were not really supervised and often just did the minimum, not bothering to preach or instruct their congregations. Their own education would have depended on the priest who instructed them in childhood. Alansplodge (talk) 00:42, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Amusing but not really relevant anecdote. Alansplodge (talk) 00:56, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This reminds me of a story I once heard – many times. But since Wikipedia demands verifiability not truth – I googled it. [1] America that gives every opportunity to immigrants (don't know if they had to have a green card back in those days ) presented one such newbie to Mr Khrushchev on his first visit to the US. This immigrant said in effect: that he came to America with nothing but look at me now! The chance I had is Only Possible in America!. Mr Khrushchev replied: There was once', he said, 'a simple shepherd boy, born on the borderland of the Ukraine. The boy had an ambition to do more than tend sheep, he moved onwards and downwards into the coal mines and then upwards into a factory. Then he took a three-year night course at a workers' educational institute and look at him now! Only possible in the USSR! Eisenhower never recovered from that faux pas. The rest of he world was laughing behind his back. The Russians where putting Sputniks into obit and American rockets were still blowing up on the launch pad. So if a Greek can beome head of an American film studio, surly a Italian peasant can become mayor, in charges of a town in a Spaghetti Western.--Aspro (talk) 00:19, 4 January 2015 (UTC) Not sure what you mean by Eisenhower "never recovered" from that little incident. Although, as we all know, the USSR went on to land the first man on the moon. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC) Especially as it wasn't Eisenhower that made the gaff. "Eisenhower became the first U.S. president to be constitutionally prevented from running for re-election to the office, having served the maximum two terms". Anyway, it was a funny story and thanks for sharing it. Now we've REALLY gone off-topic. Alansplodge (talk) 00:50, 4 January 2015 (UTC) Nikita's own little gaffe, with the Cuban missile situation, led to his return to ordinariness and virtual erasure from the public record. Only in the USSR! (and China). Maybe Ike "never recovered" from Nikita's cute little joke in some observers minds, but he was revered as a war hero in America and also consulted with his successor, JFK, during the Cuban crisis. In contrast, I doubt that Brezhnev ever felt the need to consult with Nikita. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

• Hating this before a reply misses out that Nikita said clearly to JFK : "We and you ought not to pull on the ends of a rope which you have tied the knots of war. Because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you. I have participated in two wars and know that war ends when it has rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction. For such is the logic of war. If people do not display wisdom, they will clash like blind moles and then mutual annihilation will commence." Khrushchev After, very, very, quietly, the US missiles in Turkey (on the USSR boarder), where also likewise removed. A win win for peace but by whom? JFK? This is recorded history which some may be ignorant of. Also, in later decades, it started to become clearer that JFK's medication may have not left fit him to control a nuclear arsenal. OK. Khruschchev may have been head of an 'evil empire' but don't you think you should bless your little cotton sock’s that Nikita wisdom of years (over JFK's), (his country lost some 50 million during the second world war against the US ½ million remember) saw through a young doped-up president, his brothers, manic advisers, etc., and avoided World War Three. America's population is more concentrated in cities, The USSR's less so. Who would have won – with those new city-busting bombs? It does not bear thinking about. So the US nuclear arsenal of missiles were quietly withdrawn from Turkey there after. --Aspro (talk) 21:17, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Hating? Anyway, Niki did show wisdom at one point, by backing down over the Cuban missiles issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, and got the US nuclear missile off his door step in Turkey – that was the point. It not only did it give the World a breathing space but bought about the creation of the Hotline#USA.E2.80.93Russia and kept the cold war cold... What would have happened if Khrushchev had, had, medical induced feelings of grandeur also? It just doesn't bear thinking about. What you may have forgotten, that upon Bay of Pigs Two, Castro had Soviet nuclear tipped missiles at the ready- which it turned out he did not need to use because of a US military cock-up - that invasion cock-up was fortunate for the residence of Florida- wasn't it! Yet what would have happened if it went to plan? Cuba ain't that far away as the crow - or - missile flies. Boy, did we all breath a sigh of relive in the 60's when commons sense broke out!--Aspro (talk) 03:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)