Setting a Mass to a secular song, the 15th-century L’Homme armé, is an oddity. But the title of this Mass is otherwise intriguing. Sir Karl Jenkins (b. 1944), a Welsh composer, dedicated his Armed Man: a Mass for Peace to the victims of the Kosovo genocide, giving his Mass a “contemporary resonance.” (Early Music Muse.)
The genocidal wars that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union reflect ethnic discrimination in Eastern Europe. Such discrimination is probably rooted in the very last Crusades, the fall of Constantinople.
On 29 May 1453, the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Empire. Greek scholars fled to Italy initiating or buttressing the Renaissance. Moreover, Ottoman Turks invaded neighbouring countries, creating Muslim communities. In 1529, they nearly reached Vienna.
By the 15th century, the expanding Ottoman Empire overpowered the Balkan Peninsula, but faced successful rebellion and resistance led by Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg. By the 17th and 18th centuries, a substantial number of Albanians converted to Islam, which offered them equal opportunities and advancement within the Ottoman Empire. Thereafter, Albanians attained significant positions and culturally contributed to the broader Muslim world.
The composition of the secular L’Homme armé has been attributed to Johannes Regis (c. 1425 – c. 1496), but it appears that Antoine Busnois (c. 1430 – 6 November 1492) is the song’s composer. Sources differ. Both Regis and Busnois were younger members of the Burgundian School, younger than Guillaume Du Fay (5 August 1397 – 27 November 1474). However, all three composers lived in the 15th century and were active in or after 1453. Busnois, Regis, and Du Fay were members of the Burgundian School, whose chief purpose was the development of polyphony. Although the Greeks invented polyphony, “the term polyphony is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.” (See Polyphony, Wikipedia.)
Conclusion
The fall of Constantinople and the conquest by Ottoman Turks of several European countries, the future Balkans mainly, led to battles and bloodshed. So, it is less surprising that 15th-century composers set the Ordinary of the Mass, the Mass’ permanent elements, to L’Homme armé, its cantus firmus, or fixed melody. “Some have suggested that the ‘armed man’ represents St Michael the Archangel.” (See L’Homme armé, Wikipedia.)
As for compositions of L’Homme armé that followed the breakdown of the Soviet Union, they reflect distant conflicts. Karl Jenkins’ Armed Man: a Mass for Peace, composed in 1999, is a commemoration. One is also reminded of Benjamin Britten‘s War Requiem, an anti-war piece.
L’homme armé / The armed man: the remarkable life of a 15th century song and its contemporary resonance. (Early Music Muse.)
L’homme armé doibt on doubter. On a fait partout crier Que chascun se viegne armer D’un haubregon de fer. L’homme armé doibt on doubter.
The armed man should be feared. Everywhere it has been proclaimed That each man shall arm himself With a coat of iron mail. The armed man should be feared.
I have erased the beginning of this post. It contained information on an event of extreme cruelty that led to severe losses and still causes episodes of disabling fatigue and life-threatening anxiety. During such episodes, I cannot write or look after myself properly. My blog suffers. It’s a short post.
A Seated Scribe by Gentile Bellini, (Isabella Stewart Gardner Collection)
However, I have done more investigative work on Muslims, Armenians and the concept of nationhood. Religion is a factor in nationhood, but it is not as significant as the use of a common language. Even in the Islamic world, countries accepted plurality. The millet system is a proof of religious tolerance. For instance, in the case of the genocide of Armenians, the Ottomans feared Armenians would enter into an alliance with Christian Russia.
Nationhood is rooted in several factors, but langage overrides faith. State and speech is a product of the Renaissance and a result of Johannes Gutenberg‘s invention, in 1439, of the movable type printing press. Constantinople was defeated in 1453 and its Greek scholars fled to Italy carrying books. The printing press had just been invented when Byzantine scholars inaugurated the Renaissance. Literacy spread, creating a middle class, and it brought the validation of the vernacular, and the writing of songs in the mother tongue, or madrigals, but polyphonic, mixing voices. This is a subject we have covered, but not in the context of nationhood and nationalism.
A colleague told me about the Bellini knot, so I looked at the Metropolitan’s collection and found four Bellini rugs. I also found a Safavid dynasty tapestry or rug featuring the mille-fleursmotif. Keeping fabrics in good condition is difficult. Flanders may therefore have influenced the East. The Franco-Flemish lands were the cultural hub of ‘Europe’ before the Renaissance, in music especially, but tapestries and rugs were made in Flanders, as well as the illuminations of Books of Hours and other illuminated manuscripts. There were exchanges.
Particularly interesting is the position of Venice. It was very close to the Ottoman Empire. Trading led to use the of a lingua franca. A simplified Italian was the lingua franca when Bellini travelled to Constantinople. In 2007, the Metropolitan had an exhibition on Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797.
I will close here, but this discussion will be continued.
Love to everyone. ♥
Aram Khachaturian
David Oïstrakh plays Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto, mvt 1
My post on Jean-Léon Gérôme‘s Orientalism, Orientalisme: Mostly Gérôme, features several bashi-bazouk. This happened inadvertently.I wanted to show the whippet dogs and the character named Arnaut. I also wanted to show a hookah, a smoking and vaporizing instrument used in the various countries of the Ottoman Empire, as well as Pakistan and India. These were popular items in the 1960s and early 1970s, when smoking cannabis became fashionable.
Gérôme’s artwork also refers to pashas (see France in North Africa), persons who occupied a high rank in the Ottoman army and/or government. Some Europeans became honorary pashas whose title could be compared to that of an Earl in Britain. (See Pasha, Wikipedia.) Other familiar scenes are mosques and harems. As a history painter, Gérôme also recorded the trading of white women, la traite des blanches, going back to the Roman Empire. Arabs were fond of white women whom they bought and enslaved. Gérôme’s paintings of harems and women bathing show white women. (See Traite des blanches, FR Wikipedia.)
I will therefore feature a few paintings that are not portraits of bashi-bazouk, the very cruel irregular soldiers of the Ottoman Empire.
The Slave Market in Rome by Gérôme, 1884 (wikiart.org)
Prayer in Cairo by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1865 (MMA, NY)
Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a Courtyard by Gérôme, no date (wikiart.org)
Napoléon in Egypt by Gérôme, c. 1863 (Princeton University Art Museum)
Comments
Gérôme was a very prolific artist whose art was at times extremely engaging, which may explain why it appealed to Théophile Gautier. I have a favourite Gérôme, The Duel After the Masquerade, of which there are two copies. La Sortie du bal masqué cannot be classified as Orientalismbut it speaks to me, it is evocative.
In the second half of the 19th century, when American started to go to Paris and bought works of art, art such as Gérôme’s were not purchased frequently. It was academic art. The American colony in Paris bought the works of innovators whose art was rejected at the Paris Salon. Emperor Napoleon III authorized the 1763 Salon des Refusés, an exhibition held at the Palais de l’Industrie.
Gérôme is known mainly as an academic painter. He was very well-trained and he painted as he had been taught. He was nevertheless very successful as an artist and art teacher. As noted above, Gérôme specialized in history painting, but he also created art depicting Greek mythology and he became a prominent orientalist.
Works by Gérôme are housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, the Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, and other museums. Many have been purchased privately, and reproductions are available. A reproduction is not as valuable as the original work of art. However, the ‘image’ is the most important element in the visual arts and Gérôme was an accomplished artist.
I have inserted Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite (Op. 35, 2), composed in 1888. Scheherazade is based on the One Thousand and One Nights, Arabian fairy tales, and constitutes an excellent example of Orientalism in music.
In my last post, I mentioned the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which occurred during World War II, without referring to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. If a single event throws light on today’s conflicts in the Middle East, it would probably be the Sykes-Picot Agreement or Convention, also called the Asia Minor Agreement.
The Sykes-Picot Agreements of 1916 (Britannica) (see Sykes-Picot Agreement, Wikipedia), was a secret agreement between England and France, concluded with the assent of Imperial Russia. Its authors drew a map of Asia Minor protecting their “spheres of influence” in the Middle East in the event the Ottoman Empire collapsed, which was expected, as a result of World War I.
Its authors, Mark Sykes for Britain and François Georges-Picot, for France, were in fact partitioning a fallen Ottoman Empire, before its defeat. That would be avant la lettre. As for the map of Asia Minor they drew, it was reflected in the apportioning of protectorates created by the League of Nations (LN), Société des Nations, SdN). The Ottoman Empire was defeated during W.W. I and, given the Bolshevik Revolution (the Russian Revolution) that began in 1917, Asia Minor could not be partitioned taking Imperial Russia’s assent into consideration.
According to Britannica’s entry on the Sykes-Picot Agreements of 1916, it was agreed, that the partition of the Empire would be as follows:
Russia should acquire the Armenian provinces of Erzurum, Trebizond (Trabzon), Van, and Bitlis, with some Kurdish territory to the southeast;
France should acquire Lebanon and the Syrian littoral, Adana, Cilicia, and the hinterland adjacent to Russia’s share, that hinterland including Aintab, Urfa, Mardin, Diyarbakır, and Mosul;
Great Britain should acquire southern Mesopotamia, including Baghdad, and also the Mediterranean ports of Haifaand ʿAkko (Acre);
between the French and the British acquisitions there should be a confederation of Arab states or a single independent Arab state, divided into French and British spheres of influence;
Alexandretta (İskenderun) should be a free port; and
Palestine, because of the holy places, should be under an international regime.[1]
The Ottoman Empire at its Greatest Extent, 1863 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Ottoman Empire: History
For our purposes, the Ottoman Empire had seized Byzantium in 1453 and expanded to include several nations we view as European. The Empire lasted until World War I, but date wise, it ended on 29 October 1923, after modern Turkey’s declaration of Independence. (See Turkish War of Independence, 1917-1924.) Constantinople was renamed Istanbul. Its European theatre had begun two centuries earlier and you may remember that Algeria was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, defeated by France in 1830. As the first map indicates, Armenia existed in 1916. The genocide of Armenians started during W.W. I and is imputed to the Ottoman Empire, although other countries claim responsibility for this massacre and some deny it ever happened. (See Armenian Genocide, Wikipedia.) It has been said that the Sykes-Picot agreement ended in 2014, but this date is disputed. (See Sykes-Picot Agreements, Wikipedia.)
For our purposes, the Balfour Declaration, 1917, is particularly significant. Speaking on behalf of the Zionists was Chaim Weizmann (27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952). The British were represented by Arthur Balfour, the 1st Earl of Balfour (25 July 1848 – 19 March 1930). Zionism is a product of the 19th century and its father is Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904). Herzl founded the World Zionist Organization, a movement we associate with the Jewish Agency for Israel. Jews have long been persecuted. For instance, the local Jewish population was burned during outbreaks of the plague. Jews were made into scapegoats. The Jewish Agency promoted aliyah, returning to Israel. However, although Palestine had a minority Jewish population since time almost immemorial, in 1917, there had not been a Jewish homeland for two thousand years.
In his negotiations with Lord Balfour, Dr Chaim Weizmann stated the following:
“Mr. Balfour, supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?” He sat up, looked at me, and answered: “But Dr. Weizmann, we have London.” “That is true,” I said, “but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh.” He … said two things which I remember vividly. The first was: “Are there many Jews who think like you?” I answered: “I believe I speak the mind of millions of Jews whom you will never see and who cannot speak for themselves.” … To this he said: “If that is so you will one day be a force.” (Chaim Weizmann and Arthur Balfour)[2]
As a Canadian who spent a year in Regina, Saskatchewan, and loved it, I rather like this other formulation of the same question:
“Would you give up London to live in Saskatchewan?” When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, “Yes, and we lived in Jerusalem when London was still a marsh.”
(Chaim Weismann to Arthur Balfour, see Chaim Weizmann, Wikipedia.)
His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. (See Balfour Declaration, Wikipedia.)
There was no mention of a homeland for the Jews in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. It also negated the UK’s “promises to Arabs” through T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrenceof Arabia. Britain had also promised a “national Arab homeland.” The Arabs revolted against the Ottoman Empire (see Arab Revolt, Wikipedia), which Britain wanted to defeat. In the end, the Mandates partitioning the defeated Ottoman Empire were issued through the League of Nations.
The Zykes-Picot Agreement (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Zones of French (blue), British (red) and Russian (green) influence and control established by the Sykes–Picot Agreement. At a Downing Street meeting of 16 December 1915 Sykes had declared “I should like to draw a line from the e in Acre to the last k in Kirkuk.” (Caption by Wikipedia, under Sykes-Picot Agreement.)
Conclusion
“‘This is not the first border we will break, we will break other borders,’ a jihadist from ISIL warned in a video titled End of Sykes-Picot.” That quotation was culled from an article published inThe Guardian(UK)entitled Isis announces Islamic Caliphate in area straddling Iraq and Syria byMark Tranand Matthew Weaver, 30 June 2014. (See Sykes-Picot Agreement, Wikipedia.)
It has been a hundred years since the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement was signed, and it remains.
[2] Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, p.111, as quoted in W. Lacquer, The History of Zionism, 2003, ISBN 978-1-86064-932-5. p.188 (footnote 19, quoted in Balfour Declaration, Wikipedia.)
Emperor Suleiman, by Titian(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Suleiman the Magnificent
“Süleiman I (Ottoman Turkish: سليمان اوّل) was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Süleiman the Magnificent (6 November 1494 – 7 September 1566) and in the East, as the Lawgiver (Turkish: Kanuni; Arabic: القانونى, al‐Qānūnī), for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system. Süleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire’s military, political and economic power. Süleiman personally led Ottoman armies to conquer the Christian strongholds of Belgrade, Rhodes, and most of Hungary before his conquests were checked at the Siege of Vienna in 1529. He annexed most of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large swathes of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. At the helm of an expanding empire, Süleiman personally instituted legislative changes relating to society, education, taxation, and criminal law. His canonical law (or the Kanuns) fixed the form of the empire for centuries after his death. Not only was Süleiman a distinguished poet and goldsmith in his own right; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the golden age of the Ottoman Empire’s artistic, literary and architectural development. He spoke six languages: Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Serbian, Chagatai (a dialect of Turkish language and related to Uighur), Persian and Urdu. In a break with Ottoman tradition, Süleiman married a harem girl, Roxelana, who became Hürrem Sultan; her intrigues as queen and power over the Sultan made her quite renowned. Their son, Selim II, succeeded Süleiman following his death in 1566 “after 46 years of rule.” (See Süleiman the Magnificent, Wikipedia.)
Roxelana, Hürrem Sultan, by Titian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As mentioned in the caption above, Süleiman married Roxelana (c. 1502 – 15 April 1558), a Christian girl from his harem who converted to Islam and became Hürrem Sultan. The couple had several sons. Süleiman ordered the strangling of the heir apparent, his son Mustaffa, and also ordered the murder of a second son, Şehzade Bayezid (1525 – 25 September 1561), and Bayezid’s sons. He was succeeded by his son Selim II.
The Crusades
You may recall that US President Barack Obama mentioned the Crusades at a Breakfast. This reference has been looked upon as both appropriate and inappropriate. I will leave you to judge. By clicking on the link below, one may access a short video and listen to President Obama’s brief address.
All the Crusades opposed Christendom and Islam, but President Obama was probably referring to the early Crusades. Christians entered what we now consider the Middle East. “Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem.” (See Crusades, Wikipedia.) Moreover, Christians wanted to contain Muslim conquests (Wikipedia).
The Very Last Crusades: the Ottoman Empire
Fall of the Byzantine Empire, 1453
Constantinople
The fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Empire is the Muslim conquest that ushered in the Renaissance. However, we seldom associate the Crusades with the Ottoman dynasty. Crusaders lost Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453. (See The Fall of Constantinople, Wikipedia.) It had been Byzantium and inhabited by Greek colonists from 657 BCE until 330 CE. It acquired its current name, Istanbul, in 1930. (See Byzantium, Wikipedia.)
Fall of the Ottoman Empire, 1922
Istanbul
The Sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922. The last Sultan was Mehmed VI, of the House of Osman. (See Abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate, Wikipedia.) Osman, the last of the line born under the Ottoman Empire, died in 2009.
Fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, 1924
The Ottoman Caliphate was constitutionally abolished on 3 March 1924. (See Defeat and Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1908 – 1922, Wikipedia). The Ottoman Empire was defeated during World War I, but it also fell to Turkey during the Turkish War of Independence. After the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, Caliph Abdülmecid II was exiled to Paris, France, where he died at his house, Boulevard Suchet, Paris XVI, on 23 August 1944. He was buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Mehmed VI was buried in Damascus, Syria, “at the courtyard of the Tekke of Süleiman the Magnificent” (see the caption below the photograph showing his departure from Constantinople).
Sultan Vahideddin(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Sultan Vahideddin (Mehmed VI) departing from the backdoor of the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul. A few days after this picture was taken, the Sultan was deposed and exiled (along with his son) on a British warship to Malta (17 November 1922), then to San Remo, Italy, where he eventually died in 1926. His body was buried in Damascus, Syria, at the courtyard of the Tekke of Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent. Turkey was declared a Republic on 29 October 1923, and the new Head of State became President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.”
Photo of Abdülmecid II in Paris(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Conclusion
The Ottoman Empire (1453 -1924) lasted five-hundred years and the territory it occupied was located west of the Middle-East. In the late 14th century Sigismund of Luxemburg (14 February 1368 – 9 December 1437), Holy Roman Empire, King of Hungary and King of Croatia, went on a Crusade. He was defeated at the Battle of Nicopolis on 25 September 1396. In 1443-1444, the Ottoman Empire crushed the Kingdom of Hungary, the Serbian Despotate and the Principality of Wallachia during the Crusade of Varna. In fact, in the late Middle Ages, the Ottoman Empire defeated every Crusade. Last to fall would be Constantinople. Therefore, for nearly 500 years, part of the Muslim world was located in what we know as Europe and the Crusades lasted until the end of the Medieval era.
The genocidal wars that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union reflect ethnic discrimination in Eastern Europe. It is probably rooted in the very last Crusades.
This post is a very brief and derivative follow-up to my recent posts. Muslims visited the court of France. Molière wrote “turqueries” (Le Bourgeois gentilhomme) and all things oriental, the Middle East, became fashionable.
The University of Sherbrooke (QC) Canada: The Crusades
Tughra (Official Signature) of Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), ca. 1555–60, Turkey, Istanbul, Islamic (Photo credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)
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