"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall "Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman "A prominent Liberal Democrat blogger" - BBC Radio 4 Today; "One of my favourite blogs" - Stumbling and Mumbling; "Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife
Parliamentary Democracy ? I don't think so. De Montfort was the son of a Frenchman and only inherited the Earldom of Leicester from his maternal grandmother. He spent a lot of time in France, some in the Holy Land, some in Italy and called the first elected parliament after the Battle of Lewes. I don't think he visited Leicester much. Aristocrats often have little connection with their titular locations. For example, I wonder how often Baroness Barker has visited Anagach in the highlands.
The English language ? Again, not a claim that can be uniquely tied to Leicester. Norse influenced Old English right across the Danelaw, although the elimination of case-endings and the corresponding constraint on word order appears to have developed more strongly after the Norman Conquest. Thanks for drawing my attention to this. I had no idea about it until I started to investigate Stumbling and Mumbling's dubious claims. Rather than challenge all of them, I will simply point out that Alastair Campbell went to school in Leicester. So do we claim that "Spin" comes from Leicester ?
Parliamentary Democracy ? I don't think so. De Montfort was the son of a Frenchman and only inherited the Earldom of Leicester from his maternal grandmother. He spent a lot of time in France, some in the Holy Land, some in Italy and called the first elected parliament after the Battle of Lewes. I don't think he visited Leicester much. Aristocrats often have little connection with their titular locations. For example, I wonder how often Baroness Barker has visited Anagach in the highlands.
ReplyDeleteThe English language ? Again, not a claim that can be uniquely tied to Leicester. Norse influenced Old English right across the Danelaw, although the elimination of case-endings and the corresponding constraint on word order appears to have developed more strongly after the Norman Conquest. Thanks for drawing my attention to this. I had no idea about it until I started to investigate Stumbling and Mumbling's dubious claims. Rather than challenge all of them, I will simply point out that Alastair Campbell went to school in Leicester. So do we claim that "Spin" comes from Leicester ?
ReplyDeleteThe title is presumably a allusion to John 1:46?
ReplyDelete