Toto

Van in the Turkish Period

Luiseach

Gurdur and Toto:

Thank you very much indeed for the information about sources for the name of 'Aslan'.

Luiseach

lol! Why am I not overly-surprised by this anecdote?

In which way was Elizabeth I involved? Also, where do the Scottish Calvinists come into the picture? (Hope you don't mind answering these questions)

You seem to have a fondness for the pagan impulse in literature...am I correct?

What do you mean by 'pagan'?

Gurdur

Sadly, if the Evanglical movement sucdeed in their take-over bid of the CofE, expect much more real fundamentalism there.
In a way, the Evangleical fudamentalism is very unEnglish and unAustralian (especially unAustralian); much of the most modern impetus for it has been imported from the USA and the Charismatics there. ugh.
Elizabeth almost got knocked off by her half-sister Mary, a very hard Catholic, who wanted to bring the CofE back into the Roman Catholic Church.

Edward VI directly succeeded Henry VIII, then carked it shortly afterwards; Mary I succeeded him. She swept away many of the religious vcahnges made by Henry VIII; she restored the Mass and the authority of the Pope, and gave back lands to the Roman Catholic Church that had been confiscated by Henry VIII and were still in the Crown's possession, though Parliament refused to restore the church lands seized under Henry VIII given to other nobles. She also brought back in the Holy Inquisition, which really made a lot of people afraid; and had Elizabeth locked up in the Tower Of London awaiting exceution for a while for protecting heretics, but then changed her mind, and before she could change it back again she also carked it.
When Elizabeth came to the throne, England was locked into a war with Scotland, which the English lost, a future war with Spain (the superpower at that time), and also Elizabeth faced the huge probability of Catholic rebellion against her --- as well as Pope-started plots on assassinating her.
Her instincts towards religious tolerance, as well as her self-preservation instincts, led her to remake the break with the Pope, and make it final, thus leading to the CofE as we know it today.
She was in the end far more responsible for this than Henry VIII, who was little more than an aggro power-hungry thief.

Gurdur

Yes, though my tastes are catholic ; I also like very much the CofE clerical murder thrillers by D.M. Greenwood mentioned above, and a couple similar.

E.R. Eddison is marvellously baroque, beautifully rococco; it can make reading his The Worm Ouroboros difficult, but it's worth it.

Lindsey Davis is a brilliant author, and she recreates ancient Rome and the provinces beautifully, and I love well-done historical thrillers which bring those societies and their POV's to life; whether it's Umberto Eco's The Name Of the Rose, or Robert van Guilk's stunningly brilliant reworking of the mediaeval traditional Chinese thriller into a more modern Western style but still telling magnificent mediaeval Chinese thrillers; or whether it's Tom Bradby's great books on bringing previous societies to life, or Michael Pearce's, or Keith Roberts' genius in alternate histories, or John Le Carré's or Alan Furst's studies in the very fine shading of the human soul lost in the shadows but still wishing to make decent actions, and accomplishing them (well, at least in Furst's books), or TerryPratchett's genius at human stories, people and satire of ideas, or Laurie R. King's great reworking of Sherlock Holmes with feminist and theological themes, I like them all.


What I actually like are happy endings, too; and triumph of human decency against oppression and the odds.
To me, a celebration of both human decency and moral hard choices in the face of corruption and adversity, and also a sense of fun, are all-important.

{Amazon URL's edited by Toto for revenue link}

Gurdur

I'll read my Ottoman history to see if it was Sultan Alp Aslan I was thinking of, or another; but it most likely was.

Gurdur

Whoops, sorry, forgot to tackle this.

The Scots Calvinists actually had their greatest effect after Elizabeth, druing the reign of Charles 1 and Cromwell.
They first of all perpetuated a myth that they were being persecuted (glancingly referred to by Josephine Tey in her book The Daughter Of Time), then started happily creating a very strict theocracy, and played a spoiler role and also a kingmaking role throughout the English Civil War --- they attempted a take-over bid of the CofE, but even though Cromwell himself was a Puritan, it didn't work, and many English reacted strongly to the Scots Puritanism.
English rebellion against the CofE hierarchy ("The CofE is the Tory Party at prayer") was far more trenchently expressed through the non-Puritan Methodists and Congregationalists.

Puritanism didn't succeed for any length of time on the Continent; Savronala was an exeception who got done in the end.
Anabaptist rebellion in Münster, Germany, was savagely put down (unsurprisingly in view of the Anabaptist leaders' peculiar policies), and most Continental Puritans and Anabaptists sailed off to North America --- a very large migration.

Gurdur

One last note, Luiseach, since I still haven't read up on the Ottomans;

if you want to really get stuck into the linguistics and etymology of the Turkish word "Aslan", I'ld recommend you get in touch with Andrew Spencer, author and editor of such tomes as The Handbook of Morphology etc.

Otherwise you can also join up with one of the LINGLIST mailing lists and make an open query there; somebody will be sure to be glad to help out.

I don't know at which UK uni Andrew Spencer is a prof at the moment (*); he's a general all-round excellent linguist, and while his own passion is Chukchii, a rather small language in Siberia, he would be sure to know who who be the relevant expert for Turkish etymology, if he didn't know the answers to your questions himself. He's a very friendly bloke indeed, and you could find his email address through the uni system or through LINGLIST.
________

Edited to add:
(*) Whoops, I'm just finding it out now. I'll send you a PM with his email address; he's at Essex uni still.

Luiseach

My goodness, Tim...you've given me a lot of help with the etymology of the name 'Aslan'!

Thank you again...very, very much indeed.

Gurdur

While I'm describing the CofE, there was an intersting graphic showing current Anglican membership worldwide in a news item: I'll reproduce it below.

Note the Anglicans in the USA are actually Episcopalians, rather than full CofE.
None at all in Asia.