Via the ever-valuable J.L. Wall, history professor Anders Henriksson’s complete, brief history of the world, compiled verbatim from papers written by his students. A gruesome sample:
The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man’s quest for ressurection above thenot-just-social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.
A tumultuous age, to be sure, but soon came the Enlightenment which, we are informed, “was a reasonable time.”
August 13th, 2012 | 12:44 pm
He must have gotten away with this during one of those unusual periods when the pope wasn’t Catholic…
August 13th, 2012 | 12:53 pm
Anyone who’s never made a joke about the Diet of Worms, raise your hand.
August 13th, 2012 | 1:21 pm
Wow! I didn’t know the door was that big!
August 13th, 2012 | 3:01 pm
The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century??
My experience begs to differ…
August 13th, 2012 | 8:24 pm
…”thus enriching Catholic coiffures”
no more bad hair days, I suppose.
August 14th, 2012 | 8:51 am
Hmm. If you take “convenient” to an older, archaic meaning, “fitting, proper,” and you’re a Calvinist, it may work for you. “Conveniente” still carries that meaning in Spanish.
It would then be most convenient for the Pope to be Catholic!
August 14th, 2012 | 9:18 am
At Wittenberg gift shops you can buy socks displaying the message “Here I stand; I can do no other” – an alternative to the cardinalatial red socks now for sale in Rome and which the theocrats nailed to the door were no doubt wearing.
Also available: “Here I stand” flip-flops.
August 14th, 2012 | 3:23 pm
I hate it when teachers have fun at the expense of their students (perhaps because I wouldn’t like it if I were a student and I found my mistakes were part of an internet meme).
If I were a teacher, I wouldn’t brag about my students’ ignorance.
August 16th, 2012 | 12:13 am
I love things like this. I had a great, funny book years ago that was also compiled from real student essays. From middle and high school history papers mostly, iirc. It was called “Then Some Other Stuff Happened”. I remember it as being hysterical, but I can only ever remember this one small part:
DeSoto was an Indian. Whenever anyone got in his way, he ran right over them. I guess that is why they named a car after him.
I suppose many will be surprised to hear about the last Jesuit, but I’m sure we can find a least a few who’ll agree that that’s the “true truth”.
August 16th, 2012 | 11:14 am
Years ago, a student of mine opined that the Reformation had something to do with a pheasant revolt, Henry VIII, and the Munsters. After spending awhile imagining large numbers of pheasants issuing demands and threatening to do their business on shiny papist armor, I finally figured out that the student must have read enough about the Peasant Revolt to have remembered Thomas Muntzer, who somehow came out, in the pressure of the moment, as “Munsters.”
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