Posts Tagged ‘October 7’

This Day in History

Posted in General, On This Day on October 7th, 2011 by Eugene Finerman – 4 Comments

The Historical Significance of October 7th:

Today is Karen Finerman’s birthday.

Of slightly less historical importance, this is also the anniversary of battle of Lepanto.  In 1571 Venice was ruefully learning that crime doesn’t pay for more than three centuries.  All that valuable Byzantine territory that Venice had seized in the Fourth Crusade was now being reclaimed by the new empire in Constantinople.  The Ottomans had begun their conquest of Cyprus, so the Venetians begged help from the Pope, who begged help from the Spanish, who never refused any charity that involved killing non-Catholics.

The Spanish, the Venetians, along with the Genoese, amassed a fleet of some 200 ships, and the Pope provided a nifty name for the alliance:  the Holy League.  Emboldened by God’s’ product placement, this fleet embarked for western Greece where an equally large Turkish fleet was awaiting it.  The Turks, sailing oar-powered ships, and armed with archers and catapults, were more than ready to fight the battle of Actium.  The Latino gang came to the rumble with muskets and cannons.

Guess who won?  Yes, Christendom was saved from the Turks…except

1.  The loss of the Turkish fleet did not seriously impede the conquest of Cyprus.  The Turks completed the conquest of the island by 1573. Sultan Selim II compared his lost fleet at Lepanto to a singed beard:  “It will grow back.”

2.  Half of Christendom was actually rooting for the Turks.  Who would the Protestants prefer?  Philip II wanted to burn them alive.  Selim would have been content with the infidel tax.  But the Ottoman Fan Club was not solely comprised of Protestants.  Just scan the roster of the Holy League, and you should notice a major omission.  Mais oui, the French were pro-Turkish as well.  I am not suggesting that Catherine de Medici was belly-dancing in the Louvre; France just hated the Hapsburgs more than it liked Catholicism.  In fact, the French and the Turks had an alliance dating back to the 1520s and would last until 1798, when Napoleon was tactless enough to invade Egypt.  (He was surprised that the Turks seemed to mind his attack on their richest province.)

With the Spanish triumph at Lepanto, Philip II was more devout and unbearable than ever.  Deprived of the distracting Turkish threat, an intimidated France now would comply with Spain’s prejudices.  The next year’s St. Bartholomew’s Day would be memorable for the Huguenots.  Philip also resumed his crusade to make the Dutch into votive candles.

But the Dutch successfully resisted, with the none too covert aid of a large Protestant island to the West.  (Confronted with Spanish protests, the island’s sovereign averred her innocence, lying in superb iambic pentameter.)  Exasperated, Philip decided to conquer that island and amassed an invasion fleet–with many of the same ships that triumphed at Lepanto.  He did not quite anticipate two problems, however.  The English were better sailors than the Turks, and the North Sea is much rougher than the Mediterranean.

So the battle of Lepanto seems to have had no real lasting effect unless you were a Turkish widow or a Protestant cinder.  Yet, there is one footnote and it might be more important than the actual battle….One Turkish soldier evidently had a musket but a mediocre aim. He hit a Spanish soldier, leaving him with a crippled left arm and perhaps a sense of irony. The handicapped veteran must have written “Don Quixote” with his right hand.

 

 

 

 

Nun Entity

Posted in General on October 7th, 2007 by Eugene Finerman – Be the first to comment

Today is the birthday of my wife and the feast day of St. Osyth. You may wonder which of the two is the greater martyr?

St. Osyth
Feastday: October 7
700

Martyred nun, also called Osith and Sytha. Known mainly through legends, she was supposedly the daughter of a chieftain of the Mercians in England and Wilburga, daughter of the powerful pagan king Penda of Mercia. Raised in a convent, Osyth desired to become a nun but was married against her will to King Sighere of Essex, by whom she had a son. Eventually, she won his permission to enter a convent, and she established a monastery on land at Chich, Essex, donated by Sighere, where she served as an abbess. She was reputedly slain by Danish raiders and is thus depicted in art as carrying her own head. There are historical difficulties associated with her existence, especially as no mention is made of her by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History.

This sounds like an episode of CSI: Essex.

Detective Aeugene had a few questions and King Sighere looked a little uneasy.

Aeugene: So you say that you were separated from your wife, but no one has ever heard of her. And that she was killed by the Vikings even though they won’t be here for another hundred years. And you just collected double indemnity from the insurance company.

Sighere: How about if I donate all the money to the Church?

Pope John VI: Sold!

Aeugene: You’re letting him get away with fraud.

John VI: But that is better than murder if she actually existed. And it’s fraud in a good cause. I’m still paying off the bribes for my election.

Aeugene: It is still fraud.

John VI: I have the power to make her a saint and you a traffic cop in Wales.

Aeugene: Case closed.