ROMEO & JULIET AND THE RENAISSANCE SAMPLES:

EXCERPT FROM "ITALIAN FAMILY FEUDS": PART I

"Ha, banishment!
Be merciful, say death," Romeo

"How would an American feel about being banished from his or her hometown and forced to move, say from New York to Newark, or Minneapolis to St. Paul? Depressed, probably. But it wouldn't be the end of the world. Romeo, on the other hand, says, "There is no world without Verona walls." Juliet agrees: "Banished is worse than death."

Why are Romeo and Juliet so devastated by Romeo's banishment? After all, Mantua, Romeo's new residence, is only 25 miles from Verona, a half day's ride by horse.

To answer this question we have to travel back in time, to late Medieval and early Renaissance Italy, and put ourselves in the lovers' shoes. In those days, banishment from one's city was the same as being booted out of one's country. Your city was your country thus the term "city-state."

EXCERPT FROM PART II

"Great families vied to control the city-states in which they lived. Power struggles between rival clans often degenerated into street brawls, like the one that opens ROMEO AND JULIET. Banishment was the customary punishment for the losers. Famous Italian exiles include Dante and the Medici, who were kicked out of Florence following civil unrest. Family feuds were so ferocious that the whole male line of a family might be ambushed and killed on their way to church.

In 1478, the powerful Pazzi family and their allies attacked the male members of Florence's leading family, the Medici, while they were at mass. Giulini de Medici was murdered in front of the altar, stabbed 19 times. His older brother, Lorenzo de Medici (the patron of the Florentine Renaissance) fought his way to safety and later avenged…"

[IN THIS CHAPTER STUDENTS LEARN HOW ITALIAN FAMILY FEUDS FORCED THE POPES TO RELOCATE TO AVIGNON, FRANCE IN THE 14TH CENTURY WHERE THEY MONITORED THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, AND HOW THIS HELPED PAVE THE WAY FOR THE RENAISSANCE. THEY ALSO LEARN THE ROLE OF MEDIEVAL ITALIAN PRINCES AND HOW THIS ROLE APPLIES TO THE PRINCE IN ROMEO & JULIET, AND THEY EXPLORE THE GUELPH/GHIBILENE CONFLICT AS IT APPLIES TO THE CAPULET AND MONTAGUES, AND TO EUROPEAN HISTORY IN THE RENAISSANCE.]

MACBETH & THE DARK AGES SAMPLE:

EXCERPT FROM "VIKINGS IN MACBETH":

"Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Began a dismal conflict." Macbeth

"In late spring of 793, a band of Vikings boarded their dragon ships and set sail from the land of the midnight sun. Cutting a highway through gray seas, they headed south toward warmer weather, longer nights, and instant riches in the British Isles. It was early June when the first Viking raiders assaulted Western Europe. Their slender ships glided quietly onto the white beaches of Lindisfarne, known in later times as the Holy Island. The peaceful monks who inhabited it were busy cultivating their gardens, tending sheep, and illuminating manuscripts with intricate carpet-like patterns. The famous Lindisfarne Gospels were produced here (see p. 24).

Without warning, swarms of huge bearded men, waving long swords and battle-axes, swept down on them. By the end of the day many of the monks were dead, and the monastery was burnt to the ground. The religious community's jeweled reliquaries, gold and silver chalices and crosses, illuminated books and farm animals (hacked into portable pieces) were loaded on the long boats, which then slipped into the water and disappeared over the horizon from which they'd come.

But these pirates of the North would be back. For the next two centuries Vikings savagely raided the towns and villages of Western Europe, from Scotland to Sicily, living off whatever they could steal and burning everything else. In the 860s a Frankish monk wrote: "Everywhere Christ's people are the victims of massacre, burning, and plunder." The Vikings quickly gained a reputation for savagery. To terrorize a population into submission, sometimes they roasted one of the locals on a spit along side their meat. In 1012, when the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to cooperate with his Viking captors, they "pelted him to death with bones and ox-heads" and finally a blow to the "skull with the iron head of an ax." (ANGLO SAXON CHRONICLE)

[FROM THIS AND OTHER HISTORY ARTICLES IN MACBETH & THE DARK AGES, STUDENTS LEARN THE ROLE OF THE VIKINGS IN FOSTERING EUROPEAN NATIONAL UNITY AFTER THE FALL OF ROME AND THE ROLE OF THE NORMANS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND.]