Later Perception
Since the 9th century, Widukind had been idolized as a mythical hero. Around 1100, a tomb for him was made in Enger; recent excavations have found that the contents of the tomb are indeed early medieval, but it is impossible to decide whether the body is Widukind's. When in the 10th century Saxon kings (of the Ottonian dynasty) replaced the Frankish kings in East Francia (the later Holy Roman Empire), these kings proudly claimed descent from Widukind: Matilda, the wife of King Henry I, was apparently a great-great-great-granddaughter of Widukind. The House of Billung, to which several Dukes of Saxony belonged, had Matilda's sister among its ancestors and thus also claimed descent from Widukind.
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Famous quotes containing the word perception:
“The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)