Royals Bibliomancy: Lesson One from "The Age of Humanism, 1435-1517"

Bibliomancy is the practice of gaining an answer by turning to a random page in a book and seeing what turns up. It's a pretty universal practice across history, especially in a religious context. Sometimes there's a conscious decision to employ the practice: wondering what to do, I pulled open the Bible and began reading, though it is also quite common for the book to already be open, with the answer already there, waiting. One could never do a statistical analysis of a matter like this, but as a former early Americanist scholar, I can attest that the practice was certainly talked about quite a bit in seventeenth-nineteenth century America. It is definitely a standard trope of conversion narratives. However, the practice isn't exclusively Protestant, or even Christian. The book isn't always the Bible, or even a Holy Book of any faith. Fate or God or The Universe or whatever might be speaking to you through anything, because obviously, at the point at which they're speaking to you at all, they've got whatever they want at their disposal.

So anyway, enough of all that. I'm going to do this from time to time with books I have lying around. You'll just have to have faith in me that my choices are truly random. They will be.

The Lesson from Above: 4/8/2011, spoken through the vehicle of The World of Humanism, 1453-1517 by Miron Gilmore. Page 80-81.

If we ask why Burgundy did not become one of the great modern national states, we have perhaps to consider in the first place the fact that the political loyalties developed in the Burgundian territories had been to such a degree purely personal.

Lesson: loyalty comes in many forms. It always has. Personal ties are strong. Dayton Moore is loyal to Braves and Bravesy things. However, this form of loyalty is of limited efficacy.

The Burgundian dukes never succeeded in institutionalizing their power.

Lesson: This is why Dayton understood that merely acquiring ex-Braves wasn't always enough. Thus, the birth of "The Process." Creating institutional success.

skipping to next paragraph

We have, then, in Burgundy an example of what might be called an arrested nationalism, a development that reached as far as pride in a house, pride in a race of dukes, but stopped short of becoming a comprehensive national consciousness because the conditions did not permit it to so develop.

Lesson: Player development requires the right set of conditions. Pride in a background, pride in a house (Atlanta?) will only get you so far. Reinforcement.

skipping two sentences

The work of the Burgundian dukes is responsible, therefore, for the fact that these two small states (Belgium & the Netherlands) exist between the great states of France and Germany, a fact that has been of the greatest consequence for the modern history of Europe.

Lesson: Kyle Farnsworth was a former Brave, who we hated, but then he went back to the Braves, and partially produced Tim Collins. A small state we hope will be of great consequence.

On the other hand, this achievement represents but a symbol of what might have been, a lasting indication of the lines upon which a great Burgundian power might have developed.

Lesson: We were all stunned that Moore got anything remotely interesting for Scott Podsednik, Rick Ankiel, and Farnsworth last summer. Imagine if those guys were actually good?

After this, there's discussion on page 81 of the slow and uneven growth of... let me make sure I've got this right...the kingdom of France. Hmm, well, France was different from Burgundy. So maybe this is about Cleveland pulling off a really slow rebuilding and eclipsing the Royals? Or maybe the noun is irrelevant. The next paragraph down starts with "the beginnings were slow."

Perhaps that is a final call from above for patience and hope.