A World Lit Only by Fire

by William Manchester

“Ego sum rex Romanus et super grammatica”

Under Henry VII and Henry VIII the per capita allowance was a gallon of beer a day—even for nuns and eight-year-old children. Sir John Fortescue observed that the English “drink no water, unless at certain times upon religious score, or by way of doing penance.”

Reflective men make uncomfortable prosecutors. By nature and by training, they tend to see the other side and give it equal weight.

the story of how the devil threw ink at Luther and Luther threw it back. But in the original version it wasn’t ink; it was Scheiss

Villon, however, was virtually unique. Other Frenchmen, believing that serious “literature” could not be written in a common language, overloaded their work with Latinisms and were ridiculed as grands rhétoriquers.

he told his bodyguards that an apparition of the devil had appeared, stinking up the place, but he had replied in kind, routing the demon “mit einem Furz” (“with a fart”).

Keep cool. Do not get angry. Do not hate anybody.”