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zzambrosius_02For those of you patiently awaiting the appearance of 'VIASMAE', here is a little bit of backstory. The beginnings of the Revolt of the Pacifists.
A Brief Biography of Mathilda Wolman, aka “The Exile”
with notes on sources and translations
Part the first: Before the Revolution
Mathilda Wolman was born in the south of England in 1155 AD, to a wool merchant and his second wife. This man was Mathew Wolman, and he had no sons. When his second wife died, he placed young Mathilda (then eight years old) in a convent for her protection, while he traveled through Europe in the way of his business.
In the convent Mathilda received a standard Christian girl’s education, with the addition of several languages not usually taught to girls, by reason that the Abbess knew that Mathew intended to educate his daughter in the family business when she was old enough to travel with him. Thus she learned Latin and Koine, as well as earlier forms of Greek, and was instructed in the forms of mathematics for which teachers could be found.
In the year 1167 her father visited her in the convent, and well pleased by her pleasant temperament and evident intelligence, he drew her forth from that House and took her along on his travels. For three years they traveled together, as she learned the ins and outs of the wool trade on the continent.
Descriptions of her in those years tell of a plump and sassy girl with a talent for languages and a penchant for careful thought when faced with any dilemma.
In 1170, when she was not quite sixteen, she and her father were traveling in the south of Serbia, near the border with Hellas, then part of the East Roman Empire. While on the road from Vodena to Skoplje her father took sick, of some shivering illness that eventually killed him. She had money in hand, from wool sales, and enough knowledge of the trade to continue with the business. In Serbia, however, she knew she would face great resistance: a woman doing a man’s business, and a Catholic as well. Although she had some facility with the Serbian language, she was far more conversant with Koine. She decided, after thought, to head south.
The land in those parts was wild and there were bandits and robber barons galore. She knew well that no local nobleman could be trusted, since her father had been cheated on several occasions by various knights and counts. By stealth and night-travel, and by spending her money very carefully, she reached the town of Arta, where she spent her last coins on lodging and food.
As a woman alone in that place and time, she faced manifold dangers. The local East Roman officials, seeing her plight and seeking to take some advantage of it, began to conspire to marry her off to one or another of their henchmen. To forestall this, she made a swift conversion to Orthodoxy (with the help of a sympathetic priest) and presented herself at a nearby convent where she was welcomed for her language skills and knowledge of mathematics.
From that time until her twenty-first year, she tutored the daughters of the local merchants and aristocracy in those subjects and was moderately happy. Beginning in 1176 she became more and more enamored of Pacifism, writing extensively on the subject, and apparently irritating some of the local bigwigs. When the priest who acted as Confessor to the Sisters demanded that she stop writing and turn over her work to be destroyed, she was devastated. So ill did she become that the Sisters feared for her life. In the face of this danger, the priest relented, allowing her to keep her work but not publish it, or to write any more.
In defiance of this judgment, and with the Abbess’ aid, she began a correspondence with various priests and monks and sisters of the Orthodox Church who shared her Pacifism, and who were quickly enamored of her clear and precise writings on the subject. It was at this point that she adopted her cognomen, ‘The Exile’, in order to hide her defiance of the local priest’s ban on her writings. She became a close confidant of a monk, who hid his identity behind the name ‘Socratos’ for similar reasons. They developed a private language, (the distant ancestor of Rational Hellenic) which hid their meanings behind a screen of apparently ungrammatical sentences and odd abbreviations. These two, Socratos and The Exile, with a few others, began to conspire for a Revolt that would lead, they hoped, to a Church reformed and purged of wealth and power, separate from the corruption of secular power and the violence needed to obtain and maintain it.
During these years she became more and more obstinate in her opposition to violence in all its forms, until about 1185, when she was thirty years old. At that point she faced a personal crisis when she decided that she could no longer pray for the health of the Emperor, who was inevitably and constantly involved in warfare and the execution of criminals. This announcement was met with scorn by all concerned, even her previous ally, the Abbess. After the predictable kerfuffle, Mathilda was exiled again, this time to a hermitage high in the mountains where her detractors thought she could be kept silent and isolated.
In the standard narratives of her life written by men, (there are two, one in Serbian, one in Latin) the story of the next year is a study in God’s punishment of an uppity sinful woman. Despite the desire of her superiors to keep her in isolation and enforced solitude, their own religion demanded that they send her a confessor. Men say that he seduced her; this seems unlikely to me, and I suspect rather that she seduced him. She might have desired human contact and perhaps had some hope that, through him, she might revive at least her correspondence with the outside world.
Instead she found herself with child, and in very desperate straits. She knew that if she were found out, she would be expelled from the hermitage, and no help was at hand except for her Confessor. He dashed her hopes, repudiating her and exposing her condition to the local authorities.
Driven from the Church, defrocked and alone and destitute of all resources, she wandered hopelessly in the mountains. At the uttermost end of her strength, she miscarried, and the trauma of that (apparently) left her sterile.
She was succored by an elderly shepherd who found her amidst the bloody remains of her miscarriage, and nursed her back to health. Little did he think of her worth or her chances in the world if she survived. Still, he was a Christian, and more devout than most, and felt bound to act in charity.
She returned to a sort of health, though she was never again a plump woman. Instead she became wiry and strong, though with a heavier woman’s breasts. Her rescuer soon came to appreciate her, for she knew more of the details of the wool trade than any shepherd usually does, and advised him such that he received far more money for his wool and lamb and mutton than he ever had before. Love grew between them, as might well be thought, and he eventually used some of his extra money to send for a priest and marry her.
So it was that when he died, in the year 1192, she was able to take over his flock, and scratch a living out of the mountains and dells of the Pindarus range.
It is worth noting at this point that Mathilda had no very good idea of where in the wide world she was. A long way, she surmised, from anywhere civilized. She had no way of contacting her correspondents, who were the only friends she had in the world, though they had never met. Other than the merchants who wended their way into the wilderness to buy her lambs and wool and surplus rams, she never saw a man for five years.
What she did not know, and could not know, was that ‘Socratos’ and her other long-distance friends had not given up on her, hoping against the odds that she might be found alive. So it came to pass that one of the merchants brought a letter to her in the spring of 1199. Then her heart was filled with joy, for the salutation was from Socratos, and it was in their private language. He summoned her, if she were alive, to come to Monemvassia in southern Hellas. Plots were afoot, he said, to bring about the Revolution they had dreamed of. Since she was the originator of many of the ideas they held as true, she would have an honored place in their Cadre, if she would only consent to accept it.
Would she? She sold all of her animals at a bargain price to the man who had borne the letter, and offered her body as well, if he would lead her out of the mountains and down to the sea. This he did, and she worked and walked and used the last of her money to reach the City of Monemvassia.
Part the second: The Revolution
The Pacifists' Revolt goes sour, the Pagan Underground seizes the initiative and calls for Revolution: desperate acts, violent repression, Phalanxes formed, the Usurpers routed. Socratos killed by Villehardouin in a last act of vengeance.
Part the third: Aftermath
Formation of the Farmer's Guild and the Women's Deme. Long meetings, discussions and debates about the Society they want to create. The Exile held in honor by the Commons, but her ideas amended and recast into a different form, creating The Hellenic Commonwealth and Polity, a society which she scorns.
Part the fourth: The Commonwealth
Although she is honored as a Hero of the Revolution and held in great esteem for the parts of her ideas that the Commonwealth appropriated, The Exile becomes increasingly embittered, calling the Commonwealth 'hijackers of the Revolution'. After her death, statues of her are raised in every City of the nation, and her works are studied in Skolae everywhere.
A Brief Biography of Mathilda Wolman, aka “The Exile”
with notes on sources and translations
Part the first: Before the Revolution
Mathilda Wolman was born in the south of England in 1155 AD, to a wool merchant and his second wife. This man was Mathew Wolman, and he had no sons. When his second wife died, he placed young Mathilda (then eight years old) in a convent for her protection, while he traveled through Europe in the way of his business.
In the convent Mathilda received a standard Christian girl’s education, with the addition of several languages not usually taught to girls, by reason that the Abbess knew that Mathew intended to educate his daughter in the family business when she was old enough to travel with him. Thus she learned Latin and Koine, as well as earlier forms of Greek, and was instructed in the forms of mathematics for which teachers could be found.
In the year 1167 her father visited her in the convent, and well pleased by her pleasant temperament and evident intelligence, he drew her forth from that House and took her along on his travels. For three years they traveled together, as she learned the ins and outs of the wool trade on the continent.
Descriptions of her in those years tell of a plump and sassy girl with a talent for languages and a penchant for careful thought when faced with any dilemma.
In 1170, when she was not quite sixteen, she and her father were traveling in the south of Serbia, near the border with Hellas, then part of the East Roman Empire. While on the road from Vodena to Skoplje her father took sick, of some shivering illness that eventually killed him. She had money in hand, from wool sales, and enough knowledge of the trade to continue with the business. In Serbia, however, she knew she would face great resistance: a woman doing a man’s business, and a Catholic as well. Although she had some facility with the Serbian language, she was far more conversant with Koine. She decided, after thought, to head south.
The land in those parts was wild and there were bandits and robber barons galore. She knew well that no local nobleman could be trusted, since her father had been cheated on several occasions by various knights and counts. By stealth and night-travel, and by spending her money very carefully, she reached the town of Arta, where she spent her last coins on lodging and food.
As a woman alone in that place and time, she faced manifold dangers. The local East Roman officials, seeing her plight and seeking to take some advantage of it, began to conspire to marry her off to one or another of their henchmen. To forestall this, she made a swift conversion to Orthodoxy (with the help of a sympathetic priest) and presented herself at a nearby convent where she was welcomed for her language skills and knowledge of mathematics.
From that time until her twenty-first year, she tutored the daughters of the local merchants and aristocracy in those subjects and was moderately happy. Beginning in 1176 she became more and more enamored of Pacifism, writing extensively on the subject, and apparently irritating some of the local bigwigs. When the priest who acted as Confessor to the Sisters demanded that she stop writing and turn over her work to be destroyed, she was devastated. So ill did she become that the Sisters feared for her life. In the face of this danger, the priest relented, allowing her to keep her work but not publish it, or to write any more.
In defiance of this judgment, and with the Abbess’ aid, she began a correspondence with various priests and monks and sisters of the Orthodox Church who shared her Pacifism, and who were quickly enamored of her clear and precise writings on the subject. It was at this point that she adopted her cognomen, ‘The Exile’, in order to hide her defiance of the local priest’s ban on her writings. She became a close confidant of a monk, who hid his identity behind the name ‘Socratos’ for similar reasons. They developed a private language, (the distant ancestor of Rational Hellenic) which hid their meanings behind a screen of apparently ungrammatical sentences and odd abbreviations. These two, Socratos and The Exile, with a few others, began to conspire for a Revolt that would lead, they hoped, to a Church reformed and purged of wealth and power, separate from the corruption of secular power and the violence needed to obtain and maintain it.
During these years she became more and more obstinate in her opposition to violence in all its forms, until about 1185, when she was thirty years old. At that point she faced a personal crisis when she decided that she could no longer pray for the health of the Emperor, who was inevitably and constantly involved in warfare and the execution of criminals. This announcement was met with scorn by all concerned, even her previous ally, the Abbess. After the predictable kerfuffle, Mathilda was exiled again, this time to a hermitage high in the mountains where her detractors thought she could be kept silent and isolated.
In the standard narratives of her life written by men, (there are two, one in Serbian, one in Latin) the story of the next year is a study in God’s punishment of an uppity sinful woman. Despite the desire of her superiors to keep her in isolation and enforced solitude, their own religion demanded that they send her a confessor. Men say that he seduced her; this seems unlikely to me, and I suspect rather that she seduced him. She might have desired human contact and perhaps had some hope that, through him, she might revive at least her correspondence with the outside world.
Instead she found herself with child, and in very desperate straits. She knew that if she were found out, she would be expelled from the hermitage, and no help was at hand except for her Confessor. He dashed her hopes, repudiating her and exposing her condition to the local authorities.
Driven from the Church, defrocked and alone and destitute of all resources, she wandered hopelessly in the mountains. At the uttermost end of her strength, she miscarried, and the trauma of that (apparently) left her sterile.
She was succored by an elderly shepherd who found her amidst the bloody remains of her miscarriage, and nursed her back to health. Little did he think of her worth or her chances in the world if she survived. Still, he was a Christian, and more devout than most, and felt bound to act in charity.
She returned to a sort of health, though she was never again a plump woman. Instead she became wiry and strong, though with a heavier woman’s breasts. Her rescuer soon came to appreciate her, for she knew more of the details of the wool trade than any shepherd usually does, and advised him such that he received far more money for his wool and lamb and mutton than he ever had before. Love grew between them, as might well be thought, and he eventually used some of his extra money to send for a priest and marry her.
So it was that when he died, in the year 1192, she was able to take over his flock, and scratch a living out of the mountains and dells of the Pindarus range.
It is worth noting at this point that Mathilda had no very good idea of where in the wide world she was. A long way, she surmised, from anywhere civilized. She had no way of contacting her correspondents, who were the only friends she had in the world, though they had never met. Other than the merchants who wended their way into the wilderness to buy her lambs and wool and surplus rams, she never saw a man for five years.
What she did not know, and could not know, was that ‘Socratos’ and her other long-distance friends had not given up on her, hoping against the odds that she might be found alive. So it came to pass that one of the merchants brought a letter to her in the spring of 1199. Then her heart was filled with joy, for the salutation was from Socratos, and it was in their private language. He summoned her, if she were alive, to come to Monemvassia in southern Hellas. Plots were afoot, he said, to bring about the Revolution they had dreamed of. Since she was the originator of many of the ideas they held as true, she would have an honored place in their Cadre, if she would only consent to accept it.
Would she? She sold all of her animals at a bargain price to the man who had borne the letter, and offered her body as well, if he would lead her out of the mountains and down to the sea. This he did, and she worked and walked and used the last of her money to reach the City of Monemvassia.
Part the second: The Revolution
The Pacifists' Revolt goes sour, the Pagan Underground seizes the initiative and calls for Revolution: desperate acts, violent repression, Phalanxes formed, the Usurpers routed. Socratos killed by Villehardouin in a last act of vengeance.
Part the third: Aftermath
Formation of the Farmer's Guild and the Women's Deme. Long meetings, discussions and debates about the Society they want to create. The Exile held in honor by the Commons, but her ideas amended and recast into a different form, creating The Hellenic Commonwealth and Polity, a society which she scorns.
Part the fourth: The Commonwealth
Although she is honored as a Hero of the Revolution and held in great esteem for the parts of her ideas that the Commonwealth appropriated, The Exile becomes increasingly embittered, calling the Commonwealth 'hijackers of the Revolution'. After her death, statues of her are raised in every City of the nation, and her works are studied in Skolae everywhere.
