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Three Most Well Known Illiterate Kings |
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rider 
Tsar 
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 Topic: Three Most Well Known Illiterate KingsPosted: 02-Aug-2007 at 14:05 |
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Who would you say are the three most famous illiterate kings?
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 15:52 |
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Akbar of the Mughal empire, but I find that a bit dificult to believe.
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Aster Thrax Eupator
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 18:13 |
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I seem to remember that Frederick William II of the house of Hohenzollern was illiterate- despite his domestic and military reforms, he was a buffon who formed his own drinking and jesting club "the tobacco club", hated intellectuals and practically gave the court historian Grundling a nervous breakdown by his constant pranks and was obsessed with the military - he made a regiment called "the Potsdam giants" out of extremely tall men recruited from all over Europe...for no reason! They just marched around his for his amusement! It has been suggested now that he was heavily dyslexic (he could barley draw a single letter) and perhaps had a lower than average IQ.
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Aster Thrax Eupator
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 18:14 |
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Frederick William II the great of Prussia
I seem to remember that Frederick William II of the house of Hohenzollern was illiterate- despite his domestic and military reforms, he was a buffon who formed his own drinking and jesting club "the tobacco club", hated intellectuals and practically gave the court historian Grundling a nervous breakdown by his constant pranks and was obsessed with the military - he made a regiment called "the Potsdam giants" out of extremely tall men recruited from all over Europe...for no reason! They just marched around for his for his amusement! It has been suggested now that he was heavily dyslexic (he could barley draw a single letter) and perhaps had a lower than average IQ.
Emperor Commodus of the Antonines of Imperial Rome
There is considerably less evidence for this, but Commodus was also known to have been a man of an extremely low intelligence who barley read at all. Although an Emperor until around after Septimus Serverus's time can't be called a king, I think that it's roughly okay. It's probable that he had a basic grasp of the language of Latin, but his obsession with the world of sport (to the exclusion of everything else, no offense to any sportsmen out there!), his stupidity and below average IQ would probably indicate that he would be, by modern standards, illiterate. He rejected his stoic (and probably most of his other) tutors when his father died and didn't perform well with them when he was alive. He didn't do personal reading because he was too interested in the games and gladatorial combat, and thus he probably didn't learn the language of the Roman elite, Greek - so he was definatley illiterate in that.
Early Sumerian kings
...There was no need for kings to learn written language at this period in history (it's a bit of a cheat, because it was in its infancy!). The states that they controlled were so small, didn't require an extensive buerocracy to run (they couldn't have done something too expensive anyway...) and were mainly agriculturally based. Much of the literature of the period was compiled by scribes or for diplomatic purposes which would have been read out in a court. This is an obvious one, but one so obvious that many people overlook it.
Edited by Aster Thrax Eupator - 02-Aug-2007 at 18:25 |
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Maharbbal
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Retired AE Moderator Joined: 08-Mar-2006 Location: Paris Online Status: Offline Posts: 2120 |
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 18:19 |
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I'm not sure about your point on the illiteracy of Frederick as he was the son of a brilliant prince and a sovereign of the Enlightenments.
On the other hand it is often said that Charlemagne was unable to write much more than his own name. |
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Aster Thrax Eupator
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 18:31 |
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Yes, he was the son of a brilliant prince, and was around in the enlightenment age, but those are qualities that are general of the era, were a national development and don't neccesarily mean that a king has to have any part in them. The contrast between the two - the militaristic buffon and the regal intellectual - is a widely known historical oddity, but the fact that he was his son doesn't mean that he inherited his intellectual properties from his father. On the contrary- ducal Prussia in the 1500's was a small state with no military capibilites, strategic situation or any reasonable amount of natural resources. They made their first steps through many incestuous and odd marriges to ensure political progress. Luncay, deformation and mental retardation were common in such families, and when small states like ducal Prussia would have needed to use such methods more, they would have been even more common. Charlemagne isn't really a fair one to put (I'm such a hypocrite! My Sumerian one isn't either...), because most literacy was restricted to monastic and ecclesiastical communities and perfect literacy wasn't neccesary for a king to have in such an early stage of medieval europe.
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arch.buff
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Joined: 18-Oct-2005 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 606 |
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 18:59 |
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Early in his life maybe, but wasnt Charlemagne one of the few kings of his day to take pleasure in the arts and education, he himself being tutored by enlightened monks.
*After all its kinda silly to think of a figure who would wish to re-create the enlightenment of the Roman Empire and yet fall short of being taught himself how to read and write
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Be a servant to all, that is a quality of a King.
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ArmenianSurvival
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 19:18 |
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Yes I thought it was Charlamagne who practiced how to read and write in his spare time. |
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snowybeagle
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 23:31 |
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Temujin, aka Genghis Khan, was illiterate. But he was smart, and he surrounded himself by the best minds around.
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 02-Aug-2007 at 23:32 |
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It was indeed said that Charlemagne was illiterate. The Byzantine
Emperor Justin I (though nowhere near as important or well known as
Charlemagne) was a Thracian peasant and had to use a stensil to sign
his imperial fiat to official documents. If memory serves, Charlemagne
did the same.
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 02:41 |
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It should be pointed out that in are modern era, reading and writing are always taught, in an cient and medieval times, it was common not to be able to write but to read.
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rider
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 04:42 |
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Thanks for the replies... Does anyone else come to your minds?
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Aelfgifu
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 05:20 |
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Sorry to keep off topic, but on Charlemagne: he was not educated in letters as a boy, as this was not ever done at the time. He did, at a later age, desire to learn to read and write, and according to his biographers, he did learn to read and speak Latin pertty well. He did however never properly learn to write, because his big callused hands which were used to the sword could not learn to hold something as delicate as a pen. I think Charlemagne is a good example of one of the first Early Medieval kings who were not illiterate.
His predecessors however all were illiterate (Clovis, Peppin, Charles Martel, etc.) But this is perhaps not a good answer: this was an age in which illiteracy was the norm, and a king who could write was the exeption.
The very same story goes for Alfred: he could write, but he was the first to come up with the idea of doing so.
Signing documents is not really convincing evidence for illiteracy. When a king or noble does sign himself, it is proof of literacy, but if they do not sign themselves, this is no proof they could not write. It was quite normal for the scribe to add all the names of the witnesses, literate or not.
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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
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Aster Thrax Eupator
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 06:29 |
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I think that earlier kings aren't really fair (with the exception of Roman emperors or consuls) because written language wasn't something which was in all areas of society and was something that only a minority practiced. I think that to make this fair, we need to have a date after which there is so much literacy in common society that illiteracy can be judged in a fair way.
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Aelfgifu
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 06:50 |
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I would say that in Western Europe at least, literacy for the lay nobility was becoming more and more common from ca. 1000 onwards, varying from place to place. I think by 1100, it can be fairly reasonably assumed literacy was normal for the nobility.
In Italy, by the way, lay literacy never fully disappeared, although it did become rare for a time.
edit - I have to correct my errors here. Apparently it was normal for Merovingian kings to sign their diplomas themselves, which makes me look like a complete fool. This should teach me not to post without refreshing my sieve-like memory.
I found a really interesting site about Medieval Literacy that looks pretty professional. They give good references to historians I have heard of, which always seems like a good way to judge sites...
 the part about lay literacy:
And a really cool feature: paleography exercises, with alphabte help...
 Edited by Aelfgifu - 03-Aug-2007 at 07:02 |
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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
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rider
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 07:03 |
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Yeah. I'd say 1000 as a date post of which the kings could date.
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Aster Thrax Eupator
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 12:48 |
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I would think that as fair - but there are some exceptions - I think that the Carolinigans and their splinter states (Charles the Bald, Louis the German etc) and the Abbasid Caliphate must all be considered exceptional for the time in literary development. Literacy had moved past mere monastic life in France in the age of Pippin and others, and it also had in the Abbasid period. |
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Temujin
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 13:53 |
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i don't know who you refer to. Frederick William II doesn't fit your description, Frederick William I does, however he was not called the great, but his sucessor Frederick II was. besides, the Giants Guard was not a mere parade army, back then it was believed that big guys could reload the musket faster due to their longer arms. and i found no reference for him being illiterate. |
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Aster Thrax Eupator
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Posted: 03-Aug-2007 at 16:51 |
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It must have been one of them - All I can remember is it's one of the Kings after the declation of the kingdom. I haven't read my Prussian history books for a while, but it's good stuff, very good stuff! |
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Aelfgifu
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Posted: 04-Aug-2007 at 04:26 |
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 I imagine that for your average country lad who happened to be tall, this must have been the opportunity of a lifetime. Get smart uniform, get paid on time, be the elecotors favorite, and no fighting duties at all. Perfect.
One would almost believe his extreme fascination with tall strong soldiers might hint at a homosexual nature, if not for the amazig fact he and his wife managed to have 10 live-born children in as many years. Edited by Aelfgifu - 04-Aug-2007 at 04:29 |
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Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
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