Pure Blood Parentage

[o_caipora]

No: HPFGUIDX 75754

Carolina wrote:
> 
> > How long are you a half-blood?  
> 
> bibphile:
> The snobby ones would consider them half-bloods forever. 

This reminded me of Louis XIV requiring "sixteen quarterings" for 
ladies in waiting or somesuch. I looked it up and found "The Eve of 
the French Revolution", by Edward J. Lowell, writing on medieval 
religous orders:

"No lady was received into this chapter who could not show nine
generations or two hundred and twenty-five years of chivalric, noble
descent, both on the father's and on the mother's side.

"The Benedictines of Saint Claude, transformed into a chapter of
canonesses, required sixteen quarterings for admission; 
that is to say, that every canoness must show by proper heraldic
proof, that her sixteen great--grandfathers and great--grandmothers 
were of noble blood. The Knights of Malta required but four
quarterings."

More recently, one recalls Ambrose Bierce's definition of creating a 
family tree: "Tracing one's ancestry until reaching someone who did 
not care to trace his own."

So Finch-Fletchley's "nine generations" have historic parallel.

Forever is a long time, and being able to produce (or create) x 
generation of one's own ancestry is far easier than disproving 
someone else's.

silmariel said:

> In Dark Ages, Medieval Spain suffered a 'blood cleaning' process. 
No Jews or Arabian folk. The rule was if you could prove your four 
grandparents were clean, your blood was clean. 

>From which time dates the decline of Spain.

Salazar Slitherin's first name is Iberian. Is he Basque? The founding 
of Hogwarts is about the time of the Song of Roland. Did Slitherin 
flee Spain just ahead of the invading Moors?

 - Caipora