#nigel saul

[asterionides]

oh man I'm gonna need a citation for Nigel Saul tearing Dan Jones a new one because that sounds absolutely magical

God, it's so good - I literally think about that review every time I read shitty non-fiction lol

It was published in the 10th July 2009 Times Literary Supplement issue. I don't think it's available for free online anywhere so I'm gonna post screenshots of the review (it's literally titled "Souped up" lmao) and hopefully you can click for better quality

Also very much enjoy the fact that Dan Jones gave an interview where he said that he had originally intended to write a book on Richard II but changed his mind because “Nigel Saul had already written a magnificent biography of him in the Yale series, which was both scholarly and sublimely readable, and that to hope to better that was probably pointless”

I just know the real reason was because he KNEW Nigel was going to absolutely destroy whatever he wrote. He was quaking in his little leather jacket.

[mediumaevum]

Got this beauty from a dear friend today! Can’t wait to read it. It also has a bunch of colored plates. I’ll scan some and post them for you guys *flailing full force*

[fiftysevenacademics]

gigi-tastic replied to your photo “shredsandpatches: dolohkov: Nigel Saul, you ignorant little man....”

I cannot express how much I love this. i'm not the only one who reads historical biographies and yells at the author! Especially about the fact bisexuality is a thing

It’s unfortunate, too, because Saul’s biography is otherwise really good. But his attitude is like, “People just said they were lovers to make him look bad, and it DOES make him look bad, so I’ll categorically deny it.” Which is such a disappointing homophobic viewpoint from someone whose take on Richard’s politics and reign is generally pretty open-minded.

[shakesankle]

"However, as always in discussions of the Diptych, there are arguments on the other side to be considered." (Nigel Saul, Richard II, p. 306) I'm cackling so hard and I really hope this was a conscious pun.

[fiftysevenacademics]

Richard II’s Conception of Power

Richard’s exalted view of the crown as a source of honour and nobility had its origins in his overall conception of the kingly office. Richard saw the office of the king as the sole legally constituted source of authority in society. The other necessarily subordinate sources of authority, he believed, owed their existence to it, and whatever honour these conferred yielded precedence to that conferred by the crown. In a realm united in obedience to a king, titles and land were received from the king’s hands and held by his continued favour.

This conception of the kingly office formed the basis of Richard’s ideas on governance more generally. Richard aimed to create what was recognized in the late middle ages as a ’regal regime’ (’regimen regale’), in which the will of the king predominated. The sources of Richard’s political ideas appear to have been principally twofold-- the teachings of the civil lawyers and Giles of Rome’s De Regimine Principum. The influence of the civilians is evident in Richard’s development of a more elaborate vocabulary of address. Richard liked to be referred to in formal addresses as a ’prince’. A ‘prince’ to the civil lawyers was a sovereign ruler, someone who acknowledged no earthly superior. Richard also liked to be addressed as ‘your majesty’. ‘Majesty’ was a civilian concept largely interchangeable with sovereignty. While originally referring to the total power possessed by a ruler, it gradually acquired a religious gloss, and in the late middle ages the crime of ‘lèse-majesté’ was considered an offense against the semi-religious aspect of the royal persona. There are signs that Richard’s familiarity with the civil law was widely recognised and viewed with concern.

(Nigel Saul Richard II, Yale University Press, 1997:  248-9.)

[strangeparticles]

Valentines shmalentines.

615 years ago today (14th February, plus or minus a few days), Richard II died, probably of starvation.

(From 'The Story of the House of Lancaster', by Henry Hartwright, 1897)

(From 'Richard II', by Nigel Saul, 1997)

[fiftysevenacademics]

Look what came in the mail from Amazon today! Now I can get down to real business with this bit of fanfic.