GIVE ME THE POWER!!!!

Power Play and How it Started

How can you learn from something that happened one thousand years ago? This was the question I set out to answer at the start of this project and it turns out that there is a lot to be learned from the medieval era…

The Content

For this project, there were quite a few things we had to do. First, we had to do a novel study which required reading three books: The Book of the Lion, There will be Wolves, and The Name of the Wind.

Next, I did an investigation on the Haudenosaunee and the Feudal system, and also made a blog post on that, which you can check out here. The Great Law

Then, along with my classmates Ian and Chloe, I made a dialogue of three people discussing going on the Crusades. These, of course, are not our actual opinions, and it is purely meant to represent different perspectives on the Crusades. I, then, wrote a tribute to Eleanor of Aquitaine. You can read it here.  

Next, I learned about how society’s gain and lose power. I did a sketch and tell in which you draw an idea, explain it to a partner, and create a paragraph out of that explanation.

Finally, I created a piece of medieval style artwork with myself as the center. The first step was to create an artwork choice chart and then use SuperimposeX to put my face into a painting. I put the other images into my painting. Over all, this was very enjoyable, but it took a long time and many, many, many drafts.  

The Book of the Lion

I actually wrote a blog post on The Book of the Lion a while ago, so I am not going to ramble on about that. If you want to read that post, you can check it out here.

The role sheets

Below are my role sheets from The Book of the Lion. They were important because they showed what medieval worldview was like, and this is a crucial aspect in understanding the Crusades.

Smaller parts

There were several smaller pieces of this project that I should include. The first is the notes I made quite early on in this project. You can see them below. I wrote them in order to have a greater understanding of the Haudenosaunee and the Feudal system.

1. Knowledge

-Rome fell in the 400’s to the Feudal system.

-In the Feudal system, the monarchy owns almost all land. Some other people may get small amounts of that land.

-Nobles become more powerful as they help the monarchy and give some of their land to others.

-Peasants do work and must pay taxes to the king.

-Merchants and others are not tied to the Feudal society.

-In the Haudenosaunee’s social hierarchy everyone has power.

-In the Haudenosaunee‘s government every person has a voice, and no one is unimportant.

2. Feelings + Reactions

– I know that either system is not perfect but I think the Feudal system is worse, and the Haudenosaunee‘s democracy is far superior.

-I think that the Feudal system is only beneficial if you are in the top 5%. In my opinion, this is the main reason that it’s a bad way to organize government and social hierarchy. 

-I realize how awful it would be for me to live in the medieval times, just because I am a woman.

-The feudal system is based in Catholicism and no other religions were accepted.

-For the vast majority of people (peasants) in the medieval era life was not great and they had a low quality of life.

-I feel like both systems have their merits, but I would definitely prefer to live in a society that is run with the democracy of the Haudenosaunee than live under the tyranny of the Pope and the king.

3. Questions

-I really want to know more about the Haudenosaunee and their history.

-How did Hiawatha convince Tadodaho to join the Haudenosaunee?

-What would it be like to be a member of the Haudenosaunee in the twelfth to fifteenth century?

-Was this the world’s first true democracy?

-Where did the Feudal system’s bias against woman come from?  

-How many people today are either Haudenosaunee or of Haudenosaunee descent?

4. Connections

-I connect the government of the Haudenosaunee with the democracy of the U.S.A., Canada, and the majority of the countries in the western hemisphere.

-I have made a connection between the Feudal system and The Book of the Lion and There Will Be Wolves. 

-These two books were set in the tenth to twelfth century when the Feudal system was in place.

-I think that the Declaration of Independence seems to be influenced by the Haudenosaunee’s Great Law, which is composed of 117 different rules.

-When I learned about the five nations uniting to compose the Haudenosaunee, it reminded me of how the 50 states combined to be the United States of America.

Sketch and Tell

Another smaller piece of the puzzle is the sketch and tell activity. For the sketch and tell, I drew a representation of how power is lost and gained. For the tell portion, I described my drawing in a paragraph.

Sketch:

Tell:

Do you want to know what this drawing represents? Read on to find out! Power is gained and lost with influence. My picture represents the following possible chain of events, following a new leader. As the new leader gains influence over other people, they gather more followers.

This means that if a leader has influence over 4000 people, they will usually have more power then the leader who influences 400 people. Next, power only matters when you can use it to get your way. The new leader wants people to only worship his god. If he has influence over his empire, he can convince most of them and then have his army forcefully convince the rest. On the other hand, if he doesn’t have influence over your people, and no one listens to he, all of his hard earned power is useless.

When people stop listening to a leader, the people might even stage a coup against their unpopular leader. If the leader is killed, this could reek havoc throughout the empire. Society would crumble, as other people struggle to become the next new leader. Influence is the key to power.

Dialogue

One more part of this project was creating a dialogue between a couple of people that lived in the medieval era who were debating whether to go on the crusades or not. I worked on this with my partners, Chloe and Ian.

Now, before you read this, I want to assure you that these are NOT my, Chloe’s, and Ian’s real opinions on the subject. This was an exercise in order to learn about different opinions, NOT a political statement or debate. I strongly believe in freedom of religion, and I think that everyone should be allowed to choose how they worship, or choose to not worship anyone or anything at all. If you want to check out Chloe’s and Ian’s blog, please feel free to do so.

Milaina: We should go on the crusade! I want to see the bodies of god’s enemies litter the streets! Blood shall be spilt! Heads will role! Also, all my sins will be repent, so the king won’t be angry with me for all of that tax I didn’t pay. God wills it!

Chloe: I don’t think this is a good idea. Doesn’t the bible say to not kill people, you know, love thy neighbour, and all? Anyway, I can’t go and kill strangers! What about the children, and the elderly? Why would God want us to do that? I’m not going.

Ian: I don’t agree. After all, everyone’s going. Plus, we get to raid houses, and pillage towns. We will become more rich then you could ever imagine. How else can I feed my children? We will destroy the livelihoods of thousands, and kill this vile, loathsome, evil scum.

Main project

The goal of this project was to have a piece of art with myself as the star, surrounded by smaller objects or pictures that represent medieval worldview. I started this by first deciding what my images were going to be. Then I created an artwork choice chart. It is very long, and so I will only show you the most important part of it: deciding what the main image was going to be.

Aspect of Worldview	Image of Chosen Example	Source Link	Justification	Personal Connection
Main Image: What is the main image you will be using to place yourself in?		-google arts and culture Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman Albrecht Dürer1505	I think that this image will be the base for my final image, and will be easy enough to work with.	This art connects to my worldview because the person portrayed in the painting and I have a western worldview.

Drafts

In order to create the art, I had to make many drafts which I found tediously long. I am not a very patient person, and so I found this stage particularly hard, even if the actual work I was doing wasn’t very demanding. Here is a slideshow of all the drafts I created.

The final image:

This is the final image that I ended up creating. 

Long paragraph/somewhat short essay

How can I learn from mistakes that happened 1000 years ago or more? This was one of the questions I set out to answer as I made a medieval style artwork starring myself! Now, I will try and explain what I put on that very piece of artwork and why. 

My art shows how different my worldview would have been if I was born 1000 years ago, and how the past can help me learn how I can avoid making the mistakes today. There are three main things that I put on my art to symbolize mistakes I want to avoid making. The first image is the coin, that represents how money can take over your life.

The second image is the person riding the warhorse. To me, it represents how war and violence can devour and topple even the best leader.

The third image is the inaccurate map. It represents ignorance, and how that can lead to bias towards others, or people perceived as others. These pictures help me understand how to avoid making past mistakes by seeing them as they were made.

All of these images relate back to learning from the past, as I can learn from these issues and improve by not making the same mistakes made a millennium ago. 

The book represents knowledge, and what I want to achieve in my life. It shows how I want to know more about the world, and how to solve problems that arise. I have always wanted to learn more about the universe and how everything in it behaves. 

The flying machine represents science and the technology that is such an important part of my worldview. Technology allows me to do many things that I couldn’t do in the medieval times. Bad healthcare would have meant that I would have probably would have had a pretty short life. Science is a big part of my worldview. For instance, I trust things like vaccines because they agree with experiment. In other words, they have been tested and proven to work and so under the same set of conditions they will work again.

All of the pieces of my artwork have one thing in common: they are all still relevant today. Whether it is money, war, or literature, even though they aren’t the same as 1000 years ago, they still have the same use and purpose today.

The Competencies

For this project, the focus was on two main competencies: processing and communicating.

I was proficient in processing because I was able to derive meaning and context from a variety of different sources, including but not limited to: The Book of the Lion, There Will be Wolves, The Name of the Wind, various resources provided to me by my teachers, and innumerable other texts. I was also able to consider, analyze, evaluate, and interpret how norms, values, and beliefs affect worldview.

For the second competency, communication, I believe that I was proficient because I created meaning in my artwork in an effective manner by considering my audience, purpose, and message.

Goodbye! 

I hope you had fun reading my post, and know a little more about the medieval times. If you enjoyed reading this, please consider subscribing to my blog. It is a easy way to see what I am posting about, as I will notify you via email whenever I have a new post out. It is spam free, and you can cancel anytime. Thanks!