Oddity of the Week: Noblesse Oblige?
Created | Updated Feb 8, 2015
What's hanging on your family tree? And is it drawing flies?
Noblesse Oblige?
Okay, when Create suggested we dig up some ancestor stories, they didn't mean brag about being descended from William the Conqueror's retinue.
Wait…why would you brag about that? Weren't they a bunch of illegal invaders? About a half-step better than a Viking? And you've seen the Vikings' videos. Bad dudes.
The Library of Congress describes this 1893 Puck cartoon thus:
Print shows the American upper class on the left and the European nobility on the right, beneath their family trees, with such ancestors as, on the left, "Skin Trader, Money Lender, Slave Trader, Squatter, [and] Tavern Keeper", and on the right, "Marauding Knight, Robber Baron, King's Favorite, Plundering Viking, [and] Rapacious Seigneur".
The title says, 'America's proud "four hundred" and Europe's haughty "nobility" – and the ancestors they are always boasting of.' That about says it.
But hey, if we didn't have ancestors to be embarrassed by, how would we know how cool we are? And if you've got a good, honest merchant seaman or hard-working mother of 10 in your background, try not to be too boastful about it.
You might shame the rest of us.
