The Parables of the Count and His Wisdom

Between the great rivers of the Rhine and the Rhone spreads a valley quite unlike Eden yet nonetheless desirable. This acre faced by the Pyrenees once belonged to a Count of stern wisdom and a consummate piety. The Count inherited in his youth the title from his father, and with the title, the old rivalries and enemies common to any demesne. The most existential of these threats was a northern neighbor, lands once belonging to Plantagenet scions who had arrogated to themselves the rights of many bordering coastlands and country. The Count rebuffed this restless neighbor frequently, especially the Count-Palatine who involved himself all too frequently in the affairs of the Count’s lands. The Crown deigned no intervention. The Count was faithful to the Roman Pontiff and the Count-Palatine belonged to an aberrant sect tolerated on account of its proximity to the royal family; the policy of the crown was to not invest in such intrigue. As the Count reigned over his small share of France, he sired sons and daughters.

Word came to the Count one autumn, after a long summer of battle against the Count-Palatine, that a pretender had arisen for the Crown of France from the northeast, and by all accounts this pretender had a most tenuous, if not wholly fabricated claim to the throne. The Count-Palatine fortified his own northern and northeastern borders, resisting the pretender to secure his own ties to the throne. From early reports, the campaign was not going in the north’s favor. The pretender, a Margrave, also came to blows against another province bordering the Count, whose allegiance to the current King of France was without clause.

Two envoys came came to the Count shortly after these reports were read to him, bearing customary gifts and letters of introduction. The first envoy was from the Margrave, the second from the Count-Palatine.

The Margrave’s envoy addressed the Count favorably, establishing that despite the Margrave’s military expedition into surrounding territories, he intended no harm to him, neither did he demand the Count’s obeisance at this time. The Count’s holdings were not strategically relevant to the Margrave, and furthermore he had not initiated any open attack upon the Margrave’s forces; seeing this, the Margrave made no requests at this time save that the Count refrain from acting specifically against the Margrave’s interests, and that one of the Count’s sons wed one of the Margrave’s daughters to secure his at least neutral disposition. As a reward, the Count-Palatine’s lands would be readily forfeit to the Count if the Margrave ascended into power.

The Count-Palatine’s envoy in contrast had come with suitably ostentatious reparations for the past transgressions committed against the Count. The envoy brought with him signs of the Count-Palatine’s humility and sorrow, all preparations for the uncharacteristic request made of the Count. The north not only struggled against the Margrave’s incursion but it seemed that without local support, they may not withstand him while the Royal Army maneuvers into more pressing theaters of the war. While they may eventually be liberated, it is uncertain that the Count-Palatine could retain his position should he surrender. Like the Margrave, the envoy suggested a marriage to end their feud once and for all, asking for the Count’s daughter so she might wed his son. For his help, the Count-Palatine offers those lands historically contested by both his ancestors and the Count’s ancestors.

The Count, having received both of the envoys, recalled them to his court the following morning, before the sun cast its first glimmering rays upon Europe. He addressed first the Margrave’s company, saying:

Once in the East, in the time before our Lord entered the flesh, the kingdom of the Jews suffered under the yoke of Greek princes and blaspheming tyrants. The Maccabees who enjoyed preeminence among the Jews had convened to discuss how they might vanquish the rule of foreign Gentiles from their realm. Having discussed the issue more than this time alone, they forwarded a new possibility: for these pagans they heard struggled against even greater empire of more gentle pagans, whose electoral determinations were designed as such to allow for majority opinion to rule, and furthermore seemed benefactors to compliant states who might practice their religions in peace. These pagans, the empire of Rome, were an enemy of an enemy and seemed a friend to them thereby. So the Jews at this time and many a time afterward invited Rome to defend them, and under peaceable terms. Yet you have known the conclusion before I began this tale: for the temple to Almighty God went not unmolested by their undeserving hands, and in a short while to come would the Jews revolt against them repeatedly as worse than the Greeks who came before. See their capital razed to cinders and their religion demolished from the face of the earth, subsisting only in the ethnic memory of a dispersed people roaming like Cain in exile forever.

Am I to assume this is not a historical pattern? Has the Lord God chosen my small speck of land for special charisms greater than those given to the kingdom of the Jews? Nay, I tell you, a man does not become my friend because of his opposition to my enemy. You have taken to yourself what you ought not to have done, and without the sanction of the Holy See, I cannot recognize your claim to the Crown as legitimate, as done with the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ. As such, no son of mine shall take a daughter of yours in marriage, and should I be called upon by the rightful King, I shall fulfill my obligation to meet you in combat at risk of my own earthly life. My political allegiances are not dictated by the call of political gain.

The Count also responded to the counterpart envoy from the Count-Palatine, saying,

Once, in the time after our Lord entered the flesh, a great controversy spanned Christendom as far west as Alexandria and as far east as Constantinople. The question arose concerning the divinity of our very same Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, with the pompous Arius the mouthpiece for a larger school of thought. But to whom did the Arians oppose to begin this kind of debate? Indeed the Gnostics were their primary target, the oldest and perhaps the very first heresy if it were also spoken by that dog Marcion, and these Gnostics’ doctrines and deceptions were subject to assault by our own great Saint Irenaeus of Lyons. But our great fathers in the faith did not remain quiet when confronted by the denial of the Arian heresy, allowing them to spread their poison if it were only to suppress the Gnostics once and for all. Indeed, neither did these men recruit displaced and discouraged Gnostics to resist this more pernicious enemy: our formidable predecessors remained radically exclusive to the credit of their faith.

Do you not see this, you wicked profligate and propagator of deceits? I spit upon your calumny, that I might give my daughter to play the whore with your apostate sons! Nay, I tell you, a man does not become my friend if I adopt with him his enemies. You have assumed we share a fraternal bond that we do not, for the Blood of the covenant abrogates the water of the womb. Lest you repent and come to share my creed, and furthermore make true contrition for your own wrongs beyond the protest over stakes in the soil, we share nothing. Even in these times, we shall permit no courtesies with you, so much as allowing quarter within our boundaries; remember this and do well.

The court remained quiet until the envoys, with great trepidation and awkwardness, departed with their message. Aside from the musing of the court fool, who suggested the Count accept both requests and marry into both families, there is no further account of the Count’s words beyond that day. Yet we often heed his uncompromising mind for the truth of the matter: that opposition does not determine unity, and there is no unity without a common source.