In honour of Tarimanveri

[highlyeccentric]

and the strange, strange things she comes up with. (My flist is providing me with great procrastination icon making practise right now...)



More people should support this OTP, even if my final frame is overcontrasted. (Bah. It's hard to get the lions to show up.) Naturally, as tarimanveri first said, Anjou ends up on top...

(x-posted to schoshlashstic)

Comments

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

OMGYAY! Anjou/France OTP in my honour! SOOOOO AWESOME! I'm so glad I can enable your procrastination! Seriously, any time.

I mean, Anjou=on top of most of Western Europe in its heyday. Obviously, it's so gloriously slashable with France because it didn't rule France, but there are also possibilities with like... the rest of Western Europe. Anjou/Normandy, anyone? Or would that just be incestuous?

Also, I'll be tucking the icon under my trenchcoat and making off with it, obviously.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

of course, make free with the icon :D Once I've done some actual work I'm going to fiddle some more with the last panel and try to make a single frame icon out of it... someone on suggested dividing the shield in half, and now I have visions of a big fat bend sinister as the slash in Anjou/France.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

and yes, I think Anjou/Normandy WOULD be incestuous.

(I never did get my head around how we went from Duke of Normandy = English Monarch to English Monarch= Duke of Anjou... This is what comes of being an early medievalist...)

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

Complicated marriage alliances?

*consults Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042-1216 and Aurell, The Plantagenet Empire 1154-1224*

JEEEEEBUS this is a complicated geneaological table. ARROWS! I used to have it memorized up to Henry II, back in the glory days of Craft of History: Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest with Prof C in the spring of 2004, but then I decided to work on France.

Okay. Henry I's daughter, the Empress Matilda/Maude married Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou. Henry II was their son, and kinda sorta Count of Anjou, except that he had to fight his brother for it. Henry won, Geoffrey became Count of Nantes (a poor consolation?), and yes. Henry also did homage to Louis VII for his lands in France, which eventually became a problem when Phillip Augustus started insisting on his overlordship.

Or at least, so Barlow and Aurell tell me. I'm all over the eleventh century, but not so much the twelfth.

I'll be waiting for the new versions, and enjoying the current version in the meantime.

The problem with Anjou/Normandy being incestuous is that in that case, Anjou/most of Western France and England and chunks of Ireland is also incestuous.

[kishnevi.livejournal.com]

Do Barlow/Aurell include the legend about Geoffrey's mother or grandmother (it varies between versions) being a demoness in disguise? Which was solemnly told to explain why the Plantagenets did all the wonderfully nasty things that Plantagenets did?

The only bit I remember clearly is that a local priest grew to wondering why she never attended mass or even stepped inside a church; so he worked out a plan that forced her into a church, whereupon she permanently disappeared amid much smell of sulfur and brimstone.

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's not one I'd heard before! It's totally awesome, though! It's ages since I read Barlow, but it's very England-focussed, so probably not. I haven't finished Aurell yet, so I'll keep my eyes open.

I'm a big fan of the one where Philip Augustus had to be held back from throwing himself into Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany's open grave. Sadly, it turns out it was less because of their true love and more because they'd cut a deal where Geoffrey would rebel and Philip would help him and then they'd divide up the Angevin Empire between them, but it's an entertaining anecdote nonetheless.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

BWHAHAHA.

I love the middle ages.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

not that you should let incestuos stop you. We'll get you an exemption from consanginity.

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

Oh goody. That means Anjou and Brittany can have steamy hate!sex. Or would that be a Brittany/Anjou/Aquitaine incestuous hating threesome? Or wait... ANGEVIN ORGY!

Anjou/England/Normandy/Aquitaine/Brittany OT5!!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

The problem with Anjou/Normandy being incestuous is that in that case, Anjou/most of Western France and England and chunks of Ireland is also incestuous.

Even more so if you count consanguinity by the rules of Innocent III. Welcome to the Middle Ages, we are incestuous.

~

ANGEVIN ORGY.

you know I feel compelled to make you an icon for that now? MEAN PERSON.

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

I'd say I'm sorry except that I'm like, SO NOT.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

but what about France? where does she get to be in the orgy?

I wonder if I can find similarly styled crests for all these places...

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, France wanted them all, and most of them wanted France at some point, so I think France could fit in very nicely, in fact.