"Were medieval kings really from the future" Topic

Reading Trial by battle, the French and especially the English king makes various plans that medieval bureaucracy and logistics simply couldn't make happen. But would have been perfectly sound and doable 300 years later.

So was Edward III really from 1650?

Nope – just ahead of his time!

I think that the same could be said of a number of rulers/generals in different periods – for example, the tactical plan at the Battle of Iuka (Mississippi, 1862) would have been superb if the two wings of the Union army had had radios

So was Edward III really from 1650?

What utter nonsense.
Too many people seem to think that folk in the medieval period were not as "clever" as people from later eras. Modern research is demonstrating this is far from the case.

The point is he demands stuff his society can't give him. So it sounds like he is from another time expecting the same level of society that wouldn't exist for several hundred years. He is the king and should know his own country's limitations.
It's like Napoleon saying. I'll just take a B-52 and nuke Moscow.

And Napoleon's invasion makes sense if you imagine he's going to be supplied at Moscow by a fleet of C-141's. Lots of rulers come up with plans not feasible given contemporary technology. The problem is not that they're from the future. The problem is that the longer you're in power the more out of touch you are, and generally the fewer people willing to tell you your plan's goofy.

Frederick, when you're done using those radios at Iuka, could you pass them on to Lee and Jackson for the Seven Days? And I think Washington at Germantown needs both them and a good GPS system.

So was Edward III really from 1650?

What utter nonsense.

Yeah, but it's fun nonsense.

Edward's birth date is known (13 Nov. 1312 -- happy belated birthday); so this does away with any notion of a mid-17th century origin for Ned. However, this doesn't preclude his having travelled in time. Subsequent to the invention of time travel (c. 1888)*, a friendly time traveller might well have aided the young prince to gain his rightful throne by apprenticing him to the great captains of futurity.

Ron

*The historical record is not perfectly clear on this point; a time machine is unique in that, by the very nature of its function, it may be reverse-engineered before its invention.

I am not familiar with the book in question – what are the specific challenging plans that the rulers in question come up with?

Having lately done some reading on the 16th century, I am not under the impression that the rulers back then were all that aware of the limitations of their countries. Or perhaps even their dimensions: late 16th century Swedish kings apparently had little idea about the true size of the Lapland, never mind having any accurate maps of that area.

Why deal with history at all? Why not just make stuff up?
Its easier, and who wants to read all those books anyway?

Leaders nowadays make plans that our society and bureaucracy can't support (I'll leave it at that, since otherwise we'll all end up in the Dawghouse). So why shouldn't medieval rulers be allowed to do the same?

Ah … I'm going to say … NO …

Of course they were not from the future. They were aliens. Just like all those ancient aliens that achieved things that contemporary human technology and logistics "couldn't" do.

Actually, more than rising to a high status, success tends to be the thing that distorts your view of reality.

We analyze the hell out of our failures, bur rarely look twice at our successes. We just assume that we succeeded because we were right and that being right is some type of absolute.

Could it be that all of those medieval kings who claimed to have been appointed by God were actually being advised by extraterrestrials?

Astronaut theorists say yes, and point to the cases of Merlin and the Count of St. Germaine, who may very well have been the same extraterrestrial, managing the affairs of Europe for hundreds of years.

No

13th century bureaucracy was quite sophisticated. I'd like to see the original article before commenting further.

Yes…I'm in Germany right now and there is a time portal here in Stuttgart the Germans developed in WW2. Apparently it was based on a design by Leo Vinchee of Cambridge back in 1637. It took years to perfect because of their limited scientific knowledge at the time.

I am not familiar with the book in question – what are the specific challenging plans that the rulers in question come up with?

Thinking that medieval bureaucracy could simply take all the wool needed for the war effort no problem (something which would be far easier for an absolute monarch of the 17th century. Thinking it would be easy to assemble a giant fleet and muster two armies in a couple of months.

13th century bureaucracy was quite sophisticated. I'd like to see the original article before commenting further.

Yes supriseingly sophisticated, but partly doing it's own thing, the lawyers and bureaucrats in Paris apperantly started to centralise the French government around the king without any specific orders from the king. They just did their thing.

It's not an article but a book.

link

"So was Edward III really from 1650?"

Yes, 1650 Elm Street, Richmond VA. 23220

Raylev, you weren't supposed to know about the Stuttgart portal until 2023…

This isn't 2023? Crap! Call the clean up crew …

Institutions (armies, states) often fail when leaders ask for the impossible. However, when they ask for just short of the impossible, the same leaders are remembered as brilliant forward thinkers.

If Napoleon had landed a knock-out blow on the Russian army early in the campaign, or winter come later and milder we'd all be discussing (in French?) how the 1812 invasion of Russia was a master stroke of strategic brilliance.

We are all time travellers! One day at a time!

If Napoleon had landed a knock-out blow on the Russian army early in the campaign, or winter come later and milder we'd all be discussing (in French?) how the 1812 invasion of Russia was a master stroke of strategic brilliance

So still people believes that winter myth.
Napoleon was beaten long before the winter set in.

Napoleon had mabye 100 000 men when he got to Moscow (out of 600 000 at the start) and he was loosing thousands a day, not from winter. But from starvation, disease, Cossacks and Russian civilians. And just some km outside of Moscow a Russian army of 150 000 was sitting there, getting reinforcement in the thousands almost every day.

And while winter was beginning when he ordered the retreat only the last few weeks did the extreme cold set in, by then his army was decimated and the cold mostly killed off the last few weak ones.

The Russian late summer heat killed vastly more French then the winter.

It wasn't the Russian winter that beat Napoleon, it was the Russian general Barclay De tolly and his plan that worked.

We are all time travellers! One day at a time!

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.
- Douglas Adams