England, philosophy, comedy...

I've started reading Christopher Hibbert's The Story of England. Despite the fact that I lived in the country for a while, and that I was an English major and have read a great deal of European history, it occurred to me how little I know about England, so I thought this would be a nice way to fill in some gaps. It's a short book, about 180 pages, and well-illustrated. I've just gotten past the Norman invasion and the end of their rule, and I've just started with the Plantagenets (whose name I was familiar with from Richard III and Henry IV pts 1 & 2 - Fetch me a cup of sack!).

[Thesis] Reading through the bits about the Middle Ages, I was finding a lot of the brief descriptions about daily life, castles, etc, familiar, and the funny thing is that most of this knowledge, and the ability to visualize things like descriptions of castles or trials by ordeal, comes from Monty Python. And this realization came a few days after I mentioned to my roommate J. that most of my knowledge of philosophers comes from Monty Python. Which is probably why I always thought Kant would be funnier than he is. What a let down that was. It truly was the antithesis of funny.

[Synthesis] But back to the book. I've used the above picture, which is a replica of a Norman helmet found at Sutton Hoo, a huge archaeological find of a Norman ship, not only because it's impressive in its detail and ornamentation, but also because I love the fact that whoever designed it took the time to put a false moustache onto the actual mask. Unless this serves some defensive purpose I'm not aware of, I really think it's one of the more comically unnecessary military decorative elements of the past 1000 years.