The Babel of History May 2, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Mike Dash***
The past according to a much worn-line is ‘a foreign country, they do things differently there’. Of course, if this were all then history would be a doddle. It would be enough to fill the Cutty Sark with sabres and give the natives music sheets for their acres. But, unfortunately for those who like the easy life, the past is many different countries and, almost as bad, the present is also a vast thalassocracy stretching to the horizon. The success of any historical venture will depend on the proximity of the historian’s land to the one he or she wishes to travel to: and that proximity depends to a large extent on language.
For a start, one language is rarely enough to study the past. There are the tongues that were spoken by the people(s) you want to study multiplied by the languages spoken by the nations that study them today. To deal with the Anglo-Saxons, for example, you would need Anglo-Saxon and Latin and perhaps some rudimentary knowledge of the Celtic languages or Norse. But you would also need English, German, French and (preferably) Spanish and Italian for secondary sources. That is bad enough, but let’s say you had an attitude problem and decided to study Anglo-Saxon missions in Scandinavia: then you would have to add Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Or perhaps you decide to do your doctorate on Anglo-Saxons in the Varangian Guard in eleventh-century Constantinople: Greek, ancient and modern would matter and quite possibly Turkish and a couple of Slavic languages. If you are really serious about the Varangians you could do a lot worse than marry a Bulgarian.
Some areas of the past are neglected not then because they are inherently difficult in source terms, but because there are impossible language combinations. In some senses, this is becoming less common (for secondary sources) as English becomes the language of choice in academic journals. But, in other ways, it is getting worse as ‘minority’ or despised languages start to assert themselves. Take another example: the ancient Mediterranean was ultimately split into a Latin speaking western half and a Greek speaking eastern half. In the good old days scholars needed Greek, Latin and the colonial languages, French and English to study the Roman province of Africa. Today the Mediterranean is split between the Romance and Slavic speaking north: with Albania and Greece tagged on and the Arabic speaking ‘southern shore’. In the twenty-first century it will be a handicap for a Roman historian determined to study that same province not to know at least some Arabic for archaeological reports. Greek and Latin and a smattering of modern European languages will no longer be enough.
Of course, these kinds of examples are not just restricted to the classical world. There is no definitive book on the Voyage of the Damned, the final phase of the war between Japan and Russia in 1904/1905 for the simple reason that no scholar of stature has both Japanese and Russian. Ditto pogroms in the Second World War: who has Hungarian, Romanian, German, Polish and the Baltic languages? The Nazis and their friends killed many of those who could have replied ‘yes’ to that question. More modestly, the present author’s most productive medieval research took place a decade ago with material involving three different Indo-European language families. There was, in scholarly terms, lots of low-hanging unpicked fruit simply because no one who had troubled to look at it, had had this combination of languages before.
Then if this all sounds easy what about this email sent in by Mike Dash on the languages needed to master the story of the Mongols?
Someone – it might have been JJ Saunders – commented that to do a thorough history of the Mongols would require a historian who spoke, at minimum, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Syriac, Latin and Russian (just for the original source materials), plus of course ideally Mongol itself (for the Secret History.) Then to read what historians have written, which has not been translated, you’d need at least German and French as well as English, and ideally Czech and Hungarian. Hence in a discipline in which it is rare for a seminal work to stand unchallenged for more than 20-40 years (the longer period, I think, for the medieval stuff) there is always W. Barthold’s Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, originally a PhD thesis defended at St Petersburg in 1900. It remains the standard work because no one since has mastered all the languages required to supplant it. It would be interesting to know if any still-standard work on any other place or time antedates it.
Beach wonders if anyone could come up with a more challenging selection than Mike’s. It makes messing about with Old English and Greek look positively tame: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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Swallowing or Choking on (Operation) Mincemeat February 23, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary
***Dedicated to Glyndwr Michael***
Operation Mincemeat is often celebrated as the single greatest act of trickery of the Second World War. In 1943 a Welsh suicide victim was dressed up in the uniform of a British royal marine, put on dry ice in a submarine, thrown into the sea off the coast of Spain with some ‘vital’ (ahem!) documents chained to his wrist; documents that were allowed, with the connivance of Franco’s regime, to fall into the hands of the Germans.
The Germans fell for the planted documents ‘hook, line and sinker’ (as one contemporary put it) and were led to believe that the coming Allied invasion of Sicily was a feint and that the Allies’ actual target was Sardinia and Greece. The story is well-known and has been the subject of several books and even a film (the Man Who Never Was, 1956, which includes, rather improbably, the IRA!) And much attention is justly paid in these accounts to the skill of the British team in putting everything from concert tickets to love letters into the pocket of their plant, constructing the ideal character to bait their false documents.
What Beachcombing was not conscious of until he read Denis Smyth’s recent Deathly Deception: the Real Story of Operation Mincemeat was how close the whole thing came to failure. As a lover of accident, insane coincidences and human stupidity Beachcombing notes five moments when the scheme almost blew up (once literally) in the face of the British.
1) The potentially explosive reverse came when a pompous official at Gibraltar – a particular British ‘type’ – refused to stop anti-submarine sweeps in just the area where the British submarine was going to surface with the body! After months of careful work in London it would have been a painful irony if this extraordinary plan had been blown out of the water by the British themselves.
2) The Spanish son and father doctor team who examined the body and looked at the documents – nepotism in Southern Spain, who would have guessed it? – somehow managed to misread the various pieces of information that had been stuffed into the pocket of ‘Major William Martin’. The fact was that the British had planned the rate of decay of body and the date of leaving London (hinted at in various documents on the body) to perfection: what they hadn’t banked on was the Spanish officials deciding that there was a discrepancy between the rate of decay and the dates that they had muddled by misreading the corpse documents!
Beachcombing is reminded here of various other British attempts to get one over on the Germans and the Japanese in the war, where tricks became just too sophisticated for a practical, matter-of-fact opposition. In the end, British intelligence decided that only the Machiavellian Italians could handle their rather precious and high-pitched sophistication: and, of course, the Italians didn’t matter…
3) Another problem with the autopsy was the photograph. As the British intelligence crew had not been able to photograph the victim for his identity card – he was very clearly dead – they had found a doppelganger. The Spanish doctors understood almost immediately that the photograph and the man looked different. Most worryingly the photograph had more hair around the temples. Surely the easiest thing would have been to have not provided a photograph and to have allowed the Spanish to assume that the identity card had gone missing from an open pocket? As it was the son and father team managed to explain away, to their own satisfaction, these inconsistencies, but once more the British were almost caught out by being – another British vice – too clever by half.
4) Here is Beachcombing’s personal favourite. When the representative of HM’s government, one Haselden, went to pick up the body a Spanish official, in an eighteenth-century act of chivalry, offered the precious briefcase to the British vice-consul with a why-don’t-you-just-take-it shrug. This was before the Spanish had been able to photograph the briefcase’s contents! The British vice-consul’s blood must have run cold for he was one of the few individuals in the know. He managed to bluster away that he would get in trouble if he took the case without it going through the proper channels. If Haselden had not been so quick thinking on his feet or if he had not been in the know then Operation Mincemeat would have ended there…
5) The Germans knew of the secret documents but they had to navigate their way through the not always friendly departments of the Spanish government. Franco’s officials ranged from men who had fought on the eastern front in the Blue Brigade, (ardent Nazis) to quietly pro-British officers. The Germans put up a fight to get the briefcase. But a little more Spanish inertia or slightly less enthusiasm on the part of the Germans would easily have seen the briefcase returned to the British unphotographed. Or, at least, the time sensitive material would not have been shared with the Germans but would have remained on the desk of some mid-ranking Naval Officer in Andalusia.
In other words, the British operation that, in the end, took in the entire German command (including that professional liar Goebbels!) was a close run thing. A British plane in the wrong place, another vice-consul, another autopsy team and Mincemeat would be a footnote, and probably a much mocked footnote in the history of the last war. But then who dares, sometimes, wins. Other close run things from intelligence operations: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com?
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1 March 2011: Chris F. writes in with a US intelligence wheeze: Not quite as dramatic as the body shipped around on ice, but another well-known example: In the runup to the Battle of Midway, which many will agree was the most decisive battle in the Pacific War, a codebreaker’s clever idea may have made all the difference. Saying (falsely) that U.S. forces on Midway had a problem with their water supply, he watched for a spike in the use of the word water and was soon rewarded with unwitting confirmation that Midway was indeed the Japanese objective. A couple of days more and it probably would have been too late. The following is from an internet source I remember only as ‘Ultra’, sorry….: ‘Admiral Nimitz had one priceless asset: cryptanalysts had broken the JN 25 code. Since the early spring of 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective “AF.” Commander Joseph J Rochefort and his team at Station Hypo were able to confirm Midway as the target of the impending Japanese strike by having the base at Midway send a false message stating that its water distillation plant had been damaged and that the base needed fresh water. The Japanese saw this and soon started to send messages stating that ‘AF was short on water’. Hypo was also able to determine the date of the attack as either 4 or 5 June, and to provide Nimitz with a complete IJN order of battle. Japan’s efforts to introduce a new codebook had been delayed, giving HYPO several crucial days; while it was blacked out shortly before the attack began, the important breaks had already been made. As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a very good picture of where, when, and in what strength the Japanese would appear. Nimitz was aware, for example, that the vast Japanese numerical superiority had been divided into no less than four task forces. This dispersal resulted in few fast ships being available to escort the Carrier Striking Force, limiting the anti-aircraft guns protecting the carriers. Nimitz thus calculated that his three carrier decks, plus Midway Island, to Yamamoto’s four, gave the U.S. rough parity, especially since American carrier air groups were larger than Japanese ones. The Japanese, by contrast, remained almost totally unaware of their opponent’s true strength and dispositions even after the battle began.’ Thanks Chris!
Flying to the Moon on Geese December 5, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beach has heard rumours over the years of Domingo Gonsales’ strange voyage to the moon in the early seventeenth century [1620s], carried thither by a flock of enormous geese. But it was only this morning that he finally settled down to read DG’s adventures: perhaps inspired by the equally fantastic Zambian moon programme. For those who don’t have time to read through the whole thing, here is an eighteenth-century summary that gives some sense of just how unusual Domingo’s trip was.
An Account of the island of St. Hellena; the Place where he resided some Years in, and where he planned this Wonderful Voyage; his entering on Board one of the Homeward-bound East-India Ships for Spain; their running on the Rocks near the Pike of Teneriff to avoid an English Squadron of Ships, that were in Pursuit of the Spanish Fleet ; Gonsales had just Time to fix his Machine, which carried him in Safety to the Pike of Teneriff, having rested his Ganzas on the Mountain, whence was pursued by the Savages when giving the Signal to his Birds, they arose in the Air with him for their Journey to the Moon : The wonderful Apparitions and Devils he met with in his Progress ; their Temptations to him, which he avoided, and their supplying him with choice Provisions ; his leaving this Hellish Crew, and proceeding on his Voyage to the Moon; his safe Arrival there; the Manners, Customs, and Language of the Emperors, Kings, Princes and People: His short Stay there, to the great Grief of the Lunars; the inestimable Presents in Jewels the Author received at his Departure ;his repairing to our Earthly Globe again, and was set down in China by his Birds; his being taken for a Magician by the Country People, and preserved from their Fury by a Chinese Mandarin; his going aboard an India Ship bound to Europe, his safe Arrival in his own Country, where he made his Discoveries to the King of Spain, who held several Cabinet Councils to deliberate on a proper Use to be made of these Discoveries. With a Description of the Pike of Teneriff, as travelled up by some English Merchants.
There is, it seems, a rather sterile debate about whether this is ‘proto science-fiction’ or utopian literature. What is striking is that there are many spirited references to contemporary astronomy and particularly to Copernicus. This despite the fact that the author was Francis Godwin (obit 1633), then Bishop of Hereford! However, don’t despair Anglicans, once on the moon DG discovers the Lunars, a Christian race hiding out among the woods.
Any other early examples of proto-science fiction from 1500-1800? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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11/12/12: TF writes in: ‘Not quite in the same league, but there are fly powered model airplanes in
the Smithsonian Air&Space collection. And in 1887, the US patent office issued patent 363,037, ‘Means and Apparatus for Propelling and Guiding Balloons’, where the means were ‘one or more eagles, vultures, condors, &c” restrained in a harness. The applicant states at the end “I do not claim a device for holding birds that are to carry and hold suspended a car or other aerial vehicle. Birds have not the power to do this for any reasonable length of time.’ Which I find an amusing bit of lucidity in an otherwise fanciful document.’ Thanks TF!!!
Suger’s Sherbert Holder October 13, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval
In previous posts Beachcombing has celebrated objects that have long and interesting histories: take, for example, the Baltic buddhas, Cellini’s canon or the Dauphin’s heart. It was with some excitement then that he just recently stumbled upon a vase that made, in the Middle Ages, its way from Moorish Spain through the hands of several royals, to St Denis and finally into the Louvre’s collection where it remains to this day.
The cup, it is generally believed, dates back to the seventh or eighth century and early Moorish Spain. It was supposedly given to William IX of Aquitaine, by the Emir of Sargossa, though Beachcombing has found no evidence for this. Could it just be based on the fact that in 1120 William was campaigning against the heathen on the other side of the Pyrenees?
What is certain that Eleanor of Aquitaine took it north and gave it to the dreary, saintly, goody-two-shoes Louis VII. Louis then, in turn, gave it to Suger of St Denis, a more interesting man altogether, who turned it into a mass cup. Goodness knows what the first Muslim owner used it for – a sherbet holder, incense diffuser… Certainly the blood of Christ didn’t figure. Louis (or perhaps Suger) had the following words carved on it.
Hoc vas sponsa dedit Anor Regi Ludvico,
Mitodolus avo, mibi Rex sanctsque Sugerus
This vase from Mitodolus was given to King Louis by his bride Eleanor and the King gave it to holy Suger.
Who on earth is Mitoldolus? And, perhaps more importantly, what did feisty Eleanor think about her bridal gift being given over to the Church in this way? It may have been gifted after the wars between the King of France and the Count of Champagne for which Eleanor was in large part responsible: perhaps it was even a joint peace offering.
In any case, it survived in St Denis’ collection until the unhappy events in France at the end of the eighteenth century. Indeed, one remarkable engraving shows it in the monastery’s treasure room in happier times. Then the French state looted Suger’s prize and put it in a museum for the newly enfranchised citizens to see.
Beach notes that Elizabeth Chadwick has already written a post on this object and includes an Akashi reading! Beachcombing has previously recorded his suspicion (and guilty fascination) about these kind of psychic trails through history. But if ever there was an object that it would be nice to read, it would be Eleanor’s mantelpiece fodder.
Beachcombing is always on the look out for objects with a history: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
An Ecclesiastical Harem from Eighteenth-Century Spain August 21, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
The Inquisition it can’t have been that easy. Mass in the morning, torture in the afternoon and, yet another blasted auto da fe in the evening… Who can blame the good men with the blood red cloth if sometimes they decided to create, let’s call it, ‘recreational space’ for themselves. This extraordinary – and apparently well-documented case – comes from an ‘outlet’ in Aragon in the early eighteenth century. The story begins with a fifteen year old girl visiting a Countess and her Confessor, an Inquisitor: note the dangerous role that, as we have seen before, chocolate plays throughout this account. Drink it and be damned!
I went one day with my mother to visit the Countess of Attarass and I met there Don Francisco Torrejon her Confessor, and second Inquisitor of the holy office: After we had drunk chocolate, he asked me my age, and my Confessor’s name, and so many intricate questions about religion, that I could not answer him: His serious countenance did frighten me, and as he perceived my fear, he desired the Countess to tell me, that he was not so severe as I took him to be; after which he caressed me in the most obliging manner in the world; he gave me his hand, which I kissed with great respect and modestly, and when he went away, he told me, my dear child, I shall remember you till the next time. I did not mind the sense of the words; for I was unexperienced in matters of gallantry, being only fifteen years old at that time.
Unfortunately for our heroine Don Francisco was a man of his word and the knock on the door came the next evening. The behaviour of her family is a reminder of the generalized terror that the Inquisition could cause even among the wealthiest in ‘subject’ countries.
[W]hen we were in bed, hearing a hard knocking at the door, the maid that lay in the same room where my bed was, went to the window, and asking who is there I heard say, the holy Inquisition. I could not forbear crying out: Father, father, I am ruined for ever. My dear father got up, and inquiring what the matter was, I answered him, with tears, the Inquisition: and he, for fear that the maid should not open the door as quick as such a case required, went himself, as another Abraham to open the door, and to offer his dear daughter to the fire of the Inquisitors, and I did not cease to cry out, as if I was a mad girl, my dear father, all in tears, did put in my mouth a bit of a bridle, to show his obedience to the holy office, and his zeal for the Catholic faith, for he thought I had committed some crime against religion; so the officers giving me but time to put on my petticoat and a mantle, took me down into the coach, and without giving me the satisfaction of embracing my dear father and mother, they carried me into the Inquisition.
However, things were about to get ‘curiouser and curiouser’ for this Spanish Alice:
I did expect: to die that very night; but when they carried me into a noble room, well furnished, and an excellent bed in it, I was quite surprised. The officers left me there, and immediately a maid came in with a salver of sweet meats and cinnamon- water, desiring me to take some refreshment before I went to bed: I told her I could not; but that I would be obliged to her, if she could tell me whether I was to die that night or not? Die (said she) you do not come here to die, but to live like a princess, and you shall want nothing in the world but the liberty of going out; and now pray mind nothing, but to go to bed, and sleep easy, for to-morrow you shall see wonders in this house, and as I am chosen to be your waiting-maid, I hope you will be very kind to me.
Before leaving this woman asks at what hour our heroine wishes to be woken with her chocolate: that damnable substance again. The maid also reveals her name to be Mary. In the next few days Mary explains the nature of gilded prison in which the girl has been put. Special clothes are brought and special foods.
With this answer she left me, and an hour after came again with two baskets, with a fine holland shift, a holland under petticoat, with fine lace round about it: Two silk petticoats and a little Spanish waistcoat with a gold fringe all over it: with combs and ribbons, and every thing suitable to a lady of higher quality than I. But my greatest surprise was to be a gold snuff-box with the picture of Don Francisco Torrejon in it. Then I soon understood the meaning of my confinement.
Mary gradually sets out the rules of the harem to her new charge: If you see some young ladies here, never ask them the occasion of their being here, nor any thing of their business, neither will they ask you any thing of this nature, and take care not to tell them any thing of your being here; you may come and divert yourself with them at such hours as are appointed, you shall have music, and all sorts of recreations; three days hence you shall dine with them, they are all ladies of quality, young and merry, and this is the best of lives, you will not long for going abroad, you will be so well diverted at home; and when your time is expired, then the holy Fathers will send you out of this country, and marry you to some nobleman.
The ordeal though was about to get a good deal worse: what is disturbing here is how she was alternatively flattered and terrified into service.
At seven in the evening Don Francisco came, in his night-gown and night-cap, not with the gravity of an inquisitor, but with the gaiety of an officer. He saluted me with great respect and civility, & told me: he had designed to keep me company at supper, but could not that night, having some business of consequence to finish in his closet, and that his coming to see me was only out of the respect he had for my family, and to tell me at the same time, that some of my lovers had procured my ruin forever, accusing me in matters of religion, that the informations were taken, and the sentence pronounced against me, to be burnt alive, in a dry pan, with a gradual fire, but that he, out of pity and love to my family, had stopped the execution of it. Each of these words was a mortal stroke on my heart, and knowing not what I was doing, I threw myself at his feet, and said. Seignior, have you stopped the execution forever? That only belongs to you to stop it, or not, (said he) and with this he wished me a good night… Early in the morning Mary got up, and told me, that nobody was yet up in the house, and that they would show me the dry pan and gradual fire, on condition, that I should keep it secret for her sake, and my own too which I having promised her, she took me along with her, and showed me a dark room with a thick iron door, and within it an oven,and a large brass-pan upon it, with a cover of the same, and a lock to it, the oven was burning at that time, and I asked Mary for what use that pan was there ? And she, without giving me any answer, took me by the hand out of that place…,
Naturally the young girl surrendered: So I told Mary that I would follow her advice, and grant Don Francisco everything he would desire of me. If you are in that disposition (said she) leave off all fears and apprehensions, and expect nothing but pleasure and satisfaction, and all manner of recreation, and you shall begin to experience some of these things this very day. Now let me dress you, for you must go to wish a good-morrow to Don Francisco, and to breakfast with him. I thought really this was a great honor to me, and some comfort to my troubled mind ; so I made all the haste I could, and Mary conveyed me through a gallery into Don Francisco’s apartment. He was still in bed, and desired us to sit down by him, and ordered Mary to bring the chocolate two hours after, and with this she left me alone with Don Francisco who immediately, ardently declaring his inclinations, I had not the liberty to make any excuse, and so by extinguishing the fire of his passion, I was free from the gradual fire and dry pan, which was all that then troubled my mind. When Mary came with ;he chocolate, I was very much ashamed to be seen with him in bed, but she coming to the bed-side where I was, and kneeling down, paid me homage as if I was a queen; and served me first with a cup of chocolate, still on her knees, and bade me to give another cup to Don Francisco myself, which he received mighty graciously, and having drunk up the chocolate, she went out , we discoursed for a while of various things, but I never spoke, a word but when he desired me to answer him.
Later Don Francisco’s new ‘wife’ is introduced to the other members of the seraglio and more particularly Leonora the one sympathetic face she is to meet there.
But the third morning, after drinking; chocolate in bed, as the custom was for Don Francisco and me, Mary told me, that a lady was waiting for me in the other room, and desired me to get up, with an haughty look, and Don Francisco saying nothing, I then got up, and left him in bed. I thought that it was to give me some new comfort and diversion; but I was very much mistaken, for Mary conveyed me into a young lady’s room not eight feet long, which was a perfect prison, and there, before the lady, told me: Madam, this is your room, and this young lady your bedfellow and comrade, and left me there with this unkind command. O Heaven’s thought I, what is this that has happened to me ? I fancied myself out of grief, and I perceived now the beginning of my vexation. What is this, dear lady ? (said I) is this an enchanted palace, or an Hell upon earth? I have lost father and mother, and what is worse, I have lost my honor, and my soul forever. My new companion, seeing me like a mad woman, took me by the hands, and said to me, dear sister (for this is the name I will give you henceforth) leave off your crying, leave off your grief and vexation; for you can do nothing by such extravagant complaints, but heap coals of fire upon your head, or rather under your body. Your misfortunes and ours are exactly of a piece: You suffer nothing that we have not suffered before you; but we are not allowed to show our grief, for fear of greater evils. Pray take good courage, and hope in God; for he will find some way or other to deliver us out of this hellish place, but above all things, take care not to shew any uneasiness before Mary who is the only instrument of our torments, or comfort, and have patience till we go to bed, and then without any fear, I will tell you more of the matter.
Leonora awaits till the two girls are confined for the evening and then explains.
Now, my sister, said she, we need not fear being disturbed all this night so I may safely instruct you, if you will promise me, upon the hopes of salvation, not to reveal the secret, while you are in this place, of the things I shall tell you. I threw; myself down at her feet, and promised secrecy. Then (she began to say), my dear sister, you think it a hard case that has happened to you, I assure you all the ladies m this house have already gone through the same, and in time you shall know all their stories, as they hope to know yours, I suppose that Mary has been the chief instrument of your fright, as she has been of ours, and I warrant she has shown to you some horrible places, though not all, and that at the only thought of them, you were so much troubled in your mind, that you have chosen the same way we did to get some ease in our heart. By what has happened to us, we know that Don Francisco has been your Nero, for the three colours of our clothes are the distinguishing tokens of the three holy Fathers. The red silk belongs to Don Francisco, the blue to Guerrero and the green to Aliaga, for they use to give the three first days these colours to those ladies that they bring for their use. We are strictly commanded to make all demonstrations of joy, and to be very merry [these] three days, when a young lady comes here, as we did with you, and you must do with others: But after it we live like prisoners, without seeing any living foul but the six maids,and Mary who is the housekeeper. We dine all of us, in the hall, three days a week, and three days in our rooms. When any of the holy Fathers have a mind for one of his slaves, Mary comes for her at nine of the clock, and conveyeth her to his apartment : But, as they have so many, the turn comes, maybe, once in a month, except for those who have the honor to give them more satisfaction than ordinary, those are sent for often. Some nights Mary leaves the door of our rooms open, and that is a sign that some of the Fathers have a mind to come that night, but he comes in so silent that we do not know whether he is our own patron or not. If one of us happen to be with child, she is removed to a better chamber, and she sees no person but the maid till she is delivered. The child is sent away, and we do not know where it is gone, Mary does not suffer quarrels between us, for if one happens to be troublesome she is bitterly chastised for it. So we are always under a continual fear. I have been in this house these years, and I was not fourteen years of age, when the officers took me from my father’s house, and I have been brought to bed but once. We are at present fifty-two young ladies, and we lose every year six or eight, but we do not know where they are sent, but at the same time we get new ones, and sometimes I have seen here seventy-three ladies. All our continual torment is to think, and with great reason, that when the holy Fathers are tired of one, they put her to death; for they never will run the hazard of being discovered in these misdemeanours. So, though we cannot oppose their commands, and therefore we commit so many enormities, yet we still fervently pray God and his blessed Mother to forgive us them, since it is against our wills we do them, and to preserve us from death in this house.
The two girls were, in fact, rather lucky for soon Arragon was to be besieged and captured by the French and sixty of the harem were to be released.
After the eighteen months, one night, Mary came and ordered us to follow her, and going downstairs. she had us go into a coach, and this we thought the last day of our lives. We went out of the house, but where, we did not know, and were put in another house which was worse than the first, where we were confined several months, without seeing any of the Inquisitors or Mary, or any of our companions: And in the same manner we were removed from that house to another, where we continued till we were miraculously delivered by the French officers. Mr. Faulcaut, happily for me, did open the door of my room, and as soon as he saw me, he begun to show me much civility, and took me along with him, to his lodgings, and after he heard my whole story, and fearing that things would turn to our disadvantage, he ordered the next day, to send us to his father. We were drest in men’s clothes, to go the more safely, and so we came to this house, where I was kept for two years, as the daughter of the old man, till Mr. Faulcaut’s regiment being broke, he came home, and two months after married me. Leonora was married to another officer, and they live in Orleans.
It is an extraordinary tale and Beachcombing has to ask whether it is true. The work was written by a Spaniard, Antonio Gavin who bore some understandable animus towards the Inquisition: and there is a long series of seventeenth and eighteenth-century books in English that do the same, a veritable black myth. But Gavin gives a good account of how he came by the information. He discovered the narrator in an inn in Rotchfort in France and interviewed her there.
In my travels in France afterwards, I met with one of those women at Rotchfort in the same inn I went to lodge in that night, who had been brought there by the son of the master of the inn, formerly Lieutenant in the French service in Spain who had married her for her extraordinary beauty and good parts. She was the daughter of Counsellor Balabriga and I knew her before she was taken up by the Inquisitors orders ; but we thought she was stolen by some officer for this was given out by her Father, who died of grief and vexation, without the comfort of opening his trouble, nay, even to his Confessor so great is the fear of the Inquisitors there.
Any other example of ecclesiastical harems in half credible sources? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com And how do harems work more generally? Does any comparative work exist on this question? Beachcombing has found a couple of titillating nineteenth-century instances and nothing more.
PS Writing almost finished. Normal service to resume.
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23 August 2011: Invisible has her suspicions, ‘I confess (without being put to the question) that when I read your ecclesiastical harem story my first thought was a scornful ‘Black Legend!’ And looking further, I’m still convinced it’s a load of old sambenitos. Look at the source: Antonio Gavin, an ex-priest, writing for the benefit of his rabidly anti-papist audience in England and elsewhere. (For example, here’s a Dutch copy of his book) There are at least 5 anti-Catholic books/journals on Google books quoting this identical lurid story. They have names like The Tocsin: or, Sheffield Protestant Alarm Bell and The great red dragon, or, The master-key to popery. I can see why this story was useful to the anti-Catholic movement. It seems tailor-made to press all of the right Protestant buttons about the cruel Inquisition and hapless virgins in the clutches of lecherous priests . So strange that Gavin ended his life as a Virginia parson! This article seems to strongly question the veracity of the ‘harem’ story. I find it fascinating that Gavin’s account is also found on several modern anti-Catholic sites including this one, which discusses sexual solicitation in the confessional: As the site says (and I cannot vouch for its accuracy): An early work that openly discusses sexual solicitation was written by Antonio Gavin, a renegade Spanish priest who fled to England shortly before 1713. As a secular priest and confessor for several years in Saragossa and as a member of the so-called moral academy, where local confessors would routinely discuss their most difficult cases with their colleagues, Gavin was in a good position to learn about instances of sexual solicitation. Within a few years of his arrival in England, Gavin had published, The Master Key to Popery, in which he denounced questioning of penitents on sexual matters as a school for scandal by which the penitents learn things of whiciest who fled to England shortly before 1713. As a secular priest and confessor for several years in Saragossa and as a member of the so-called moral academy, where local confessors would routinely discuss their most difficult cases with their colleagues, Gavin was in a good position to learn about instances of sexual solicitation. Within a few years of his arrival in England, Gavin had published, The Master Key to Popery, in which he denounced questioning of penitents on sexual matters as a school for scandal by which the penitents learn things of which they never had dreamed before.The Master Key of Popery is filled with stories about the lewdness of priests some of the solicitation cases he discusses have the ring of truth. Regardless of the degree of exaggeration contained in Gavin’s discussion of solicitation, The Master Key of Popery is important because the shameful secret of sexual solicitation by priests, which had been so carefully preserved by the Holy Office, was revealed to a popular audience and by no less a source than a former Spanish Catholic priest. [37 - footnote: Sexuality in the Confessional, A Sacrament Profaned, (Oxford University Press, 1996). P. 183-85 Now I have NO doubt whatsoever that ecclesiastic sexual irregularities were >ahem< rampant in 18th century Spain (and earlier). But this particular account by Gavin? I look at it much as I would ‘Awful Disclosures’ by Maria Monk or a Jack Chick tract. For similar 19th century stories see Nancy Lusignan Schultz’s, Veil of Fear: Nineteenth Century Convent Tales, Purdue University (1999). I close with a florid passage from Monks, Nuns and Monasteries by Sacheverell Sitwell about the chapel of Santa Clara in Coimbra, Portugal. ‘perhaps of more romantic impact is the chapel of Santa Clara…there are five side altars to each side with grilles over them for the nuns to look down into the church, but these are not like the opera-boxes of Bavarian or Neapolitan nunneries. They are latticed grilles to hide the inmates of a sacred harem’. And, given that nuns were married to Christ in ceremonies with vows, rings, wedding gowns, veils, and crowns, in a manner of speaking, a cloistered monastery truly IS an ecclesiastical harem.’ Thanks Invisible!!!
25 August 2011: Author Jay Nelson writes i:n ‘I am inspired to respond to your question about ecclesiastical harems as such clerical hi-jinks (if one may call them such) are a great interest of mine. The most amazing case I have encountered is that of Canon Pandolfino Ricasoli, a Jesuit confessor who with a prioress named Faustina, turned a 17th century Italian convent into a full-blown sex cult. He seduced the girls saying that carnal acts were okey-dokey if one kept the mind on God. Sometimes he enjoyed several at once at Christmas when he was feeling particularly devout, and the two also pimped them out to local nobles. They were only found out when one of the girls confessed to a Priarist priest, who informed the Inquisition. Ironically, this order of teachers, founded by the Catholic patron saint of education, St. José Calasanz, would also soon get into trouble with the Inquisition and be dissolved for the amount of sexual abuse going on. Like so many modern prelates, the saint promoted and transferred offenders to keep it covered up. For having had an obscene amount of fun over eight years, Ricasoli was walled up for the remaining sixteen years of his life. Strangely enough, on the Net you can find copies of a painting of him for sale by Chinese studios. Why they chose that image is an interesting question — it shows him holding a cross, with a little devil, added after he was busted, whispering in his ear. The story is covered in my book, SONS OF PERDITION, and also in FALLEN ORDER by Karen Liebreich.’ Thanks a million Jay!
Flight in Eleventh-Century England August 14, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval
*** This post is dedicated to Roy who suggested Eilmer***
As regular readers will know Beachcombing is one of those irritating sceptics, who looks askance at most historical records of the ‘impossible’. But every so often even he has to shake his head and admit that the evidence for the ‘impossible’ is frighteningly good. Take this record from William of Malmesbury’s Deeds of the Kings of the English ‘published’ c. 1125. In William’s work there appears the following description of a certain monk named Eilmer.
Not many years after [1060] a comet, a star foretelling, they say, change in kingdoms, appeared trailing its long and fiery tail across the sky. Wherefore a certain wonderful (pulchre?) monk of our monastery, Eilmer by name, bowed down with terror at the sight of the brilliant star, sagely cried ‘Thou art come! A cause of grief to many a mother art thou come; I have seen thee before; but now I behold thee much more terrible, threatening to hurl destruction on this land.’
Non multo post, cometes stella, ut ferunt, mutationes regnorum praetendens, longos et flammeos crines per inane ducens, apparuit; unde pulchre quidam nostri monasterii monachus, Eilmerus nomine, uiso coruscantes astri terrore conquiniscens, ‘Uenisti’, inquit, ‘uenist, multis matribus lugende; dudum est quod te uidi, sed nunc multo terribiliorem te intueor patriae hujus excidium uibrantem.’
This passage begins quietly and uncontroversially enough. We learn that there was a monk called Eilmer who had dwelt in William’s own monastery of Malmesbury. The reference to the comet is to Halley’s Comet and the mutationes regnorum or, if you like, the ‘regime change’, it heralded was the Norman Invasion of England: both comet and the invasion dating to 1066. Note too that Eilmer seems to have seen Halley’s Comet on its previous trip, i.e. in 989 that would mean that he was in his eighties in 1066. Alternatively, he could be referring to any other comet that had brightened the night sky in the early eleventh century. For present purposes it doesn’t much matter, though perhaps we should add that Eilmer may have written astronomical tracts some of which may have survived into the sixteenth century.
What is interesting though is that it situates Eilmer as a historical figure well within William’s living memory. Eilmer was still alive in 1066 and was apparently an old man at that time. William was born in c. 1090 (the date is difficult) and spent his boyhood at Malmesbury. It is unlikely that he himself ever met Eilmer but he would certainly have come into contact with monks who had known the venerable old Saxon. This is worth bearing in mind as we now move to the second fact concerning Eilmer.
Eilmer was a man learned for those times, of ripe old age, and in his early youth had hazarded a deed of remarkable boldness. He had by some means, I scarcely know what, fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus, and, collecting the breeze on the summit of a tower, he flew for more than the distance of a furlong. But, agitated by the violence of the wind and the swirling of air, as well as by awareness of his rashness, he fell, broke his legs, and was lame ever after. He himself used to say that the cause of his failure was his forgetting to put a tail on the back part.
Is erat litteris, quantum ad id temporis, bene imbutus, aeuo maturus, immanem audaciam prima iuuentute conatus: nam pennas manibus et pedibus haud scio qua innexuerat arte, ut Daedali more uolaret, fabulam pro uero amplexus, collectaque e summo turris aura, spatio stadii et plus uolauit; sed uenti et turbinis uiolentia, simul et temerarii facti conscientia, tremulus cecidit, perpetuo post haec debilis, et crura effractus. Ipse ferebat causam ruinae quod caudam in posteriori parte oblitus fuerit.
There have been attempt to date this attempt at flying or gliding to the early eleventh century – none really succeed though because of the dreadful ambiguities of the word iuuentus in Latin and the difficulty over whether or not Eilmer saw Halley’s comet twice or Halley’s comet and another now forgotten object in the heavens. But what is difficult to gainsay is that at the end of the eleventh century there was a tradition that old Eilmer had, as a young man, tried to fly. Beach can accept that it was not really from a tower, that it was less than a furlong – what, after all, is a spatio stadii? – and that the wings were not as described. But there does seem to be some memory that, c. 1000, an Anglo-Saxon monk was trying to soar with the birds and that he badly hurt himself.
Not the least incredible part of this is that Eilmer even tried. The Christian tradition ascribes flying to two human beings: Christ with his ascension (a notable late Saxon theme in art btw) and Simon Magus, the sorcerer. It is difficult to imagine any monk wanting to emulate Simon and while imitatio Christi was all good and fine it was supposed to involve charity and turning the other cheek not walking on water or defying gravity. What was Eilmer thinking?
Beach should also note another fact. Abul-Qasim Abbas bin Firnas from Cordoba tried to fly c. 875. The parallel with Eilmer’s attempt has been noted by many scholars but no one else who has written on this subject seems particularly worried by it, perhaps because this account is so very late (seventeenth century).
‘Among other very curious experiments which [Abul-Qasim Abbas bin Firnas] made, one is his trying to fly. He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when, according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one.’
That detail about the tail rankles. Did William read or hear about this tail from one of his (several) Spanish sources (now lost) and include it a little naughtily in Eilmer’s tale? Did the Malmesbury oral tradition pick it up earlier in the eleventh century from Christian northern Spain and integrate it into Eilmer’s saga? Did a tradition from Malmesbury get dragged into the Arabic world and get included in the late source? Or is the parallel sheer chance?
Other examples of early flight please write to: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
PS Beach was so excited by Eilmer that he went to tell Mrs B about him. Mrs B – who holds history in proper contempt – quoted Woody ‘this is not flying, it is falling with style’. Then she roared with laughter and went to water the roses.
***
15 August 2011: Roy himself writes in ‘I really enjoyed learning more about Eilmer. It would be interesting to discern his motives. There is one other record of flight in the Bible: the ascension of Elijah. Fire, whirlwind, a chariot and a horse. Something tells me Eilmer wasn’t trying to imitate this event. It seems like mankind has been interested in flying for quite some time, but this definitely seems a bit out of character for a monk! One possibility is that Eilmer may have been inspired by the account of Archytus, who had built a dove-like machine that was self-propelled and could fly on its own. Even then, Gellius seemed at least a bit skeptical.’ Thanks Roy!
16 August 2011: Sword And Beast writes in ‘I’ve only seen your post on Eilmer today, and I remembered two similar cases, an old one and a rather stupid new one: Bartolomeu de Gusmão was a portuguese jesuit and is said to have patented, in 1709, ‘an instrument to walk on air’, which is today the hot air balloon. There is a link in , with a rather interesting transcript from a 1786 Times article. But the first documented balloon flight only took place eighty years later, in France. ‘The Flying Priest’ was later mentioned in José Saramago´s Baltasar and Blimunda novel. A contemporary version of air monks took place in 2008: a priest decided to take off in a chair attached to 1000 helium balloons, in order to raise money for a social cause. Even though he had a GPS device, he called from the air through his cellphone, asking how to use it. Some hours later, his battery went dead. Needless to say, he went missing for two months, and his body was later found in the sea. It seems that Eilmer has quite a following… ‘ Thanks Sword!
The Saint who Became a Cat May 7, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern
Beachcombing has previously looked at St Christopher a dog-headed saint. But what about St Agatha who can turn into a cat?
First a little background. Agatha was a martyr saint from Catania, Sicily whose five-day festival each year in early February remains one of the highlights of civic life in the city and whose climax comes when the priests pass among the people to let them kiss Agatha’s relics including her foot, her breasts and her veil.
Collectors of curiosities may be interested to know that her breasts – removed by Roman torturers – can also be found in relic collections at Palermo and St Trophime…
In Catania you would offend local sensibilities were you to suggest that Agatha could change into a cat – and believe Beachcombing when he says that you do not want to risk offending local sensibilities in this particular Sicilian city.
However, Agatha had, in times gone by, an empire of followers who stretched up to the Atlantic coast to Britain – a stained glass window in Gloucester Cathedral. And down through France and into northern Spain where she was invoked to protect agricultural communities from lightning and hail-storms.
It was only in the south of France that the connection between Agatha and the cat came up. Here legend had it that the saint would appear in the guise of a cat to women who had the impertinence to weave or wash on her day – 5 February, you have been warned.
The delightful Violet Alford – who Beachcombing knows for her work on, of all things, English folkdancing – retells one of these feline hagiographies (178).
A woman announced that she was going to begin washing, but her neighbour reminded her it was St. Agatha’s Day and that this work was forbidden… She began [nevertheless] her wash, and immediately ‘a sort of cat’ appeared at the chimney corner. This creature cried ‘Empty it, empty it’ every time the cauldron had to be emptied. The terrified woman ran to her wise neighbour. She was told to go to the window when it was time to empty the last cauldron, and to cry out ‘The cemetery is on fire!’ …the cat howled ‘To my little home!’ and fled. Back it came to inform the woman of the escape she had had. [she would have been burnt alive] And this time the teller said it was the Saint risen from her grave to punish the woman for not observing her day.
There are many versions of this but the cemetery – an established detail – being the saint’s ‘little home’ worries Beachcombing because there is no reason for thinking that Agatha’s relics were in the local cemetery – not even a breast, damn it! Was this a kind of zombie-saint-cat then? Note too that the cat appears ‘at the chimney corner’.
Any other examples of saints turning into animals? Beachcombing has, over the years, spent more time than is good for him reading the lives of saints and cannot think of a single case: though there are many, many episodes where saints interact with animals. Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
And the reason for Agatha’s feline jinks? For once there is straightforward explanation. Agatha in the langue d’oc is Gato or ‘cat’. The disease of language…
***
31 May 2011:Andy the Mad Monk writes in with an intriguing cat-saint story: ‘Your recent enquiry about saints which changed into animals brings to mind the curious case of the relics of Joan of Arc. These highly venerated articles turned out to include mummified cat remains from the third century. Possibly another miracle?’ Thanks Andy!
The Monster of Mondoñedo April 23, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Actualite
Summer madness approaches in Little Snoring – just the exams and marking to go and term is over. By way of celebration Beachcombing thought that today he would leave conventional (sic) history behind and partake in recipes for the madness of crowds. Think of what follows as a twenty-first-century entry for the Anarchist’s Cookbook inspired in part by evening readings in the brilliant Outbreak: The Enyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behaviour by Evans and Bartholomew.
First the challenge: how can you create a mania in a community, convincing normally sensible people that something is there that is not?
History teaches and sociology/psychology suggest that you need a stimulus – for example, a radio dramatisation claiming that the Martians have landed.
But the really successful cases of ‘mass hysteria’ go beyond that. In these a mania becomes self-perpetuating and self-confirming. In other words, it is not enough that the radio programme gets people running out into the street with electric saws and rolling pins determined to kill the blobs from the red planet. To be an absolutely first class ‘outbreak’ the radio show would spawn sightings of Martians and perhaps reports of the odd punch up between locals and giant tripods.
Enter the Monster of Mondoñedo*… Mondoñedo is a town in the Galician province of Lugo, one of the wildest corners of Spain. And the MoM is a biped, Sasquatch-type creature teeming with body lice.
Now let us be quite clear. The Monster of Mondoñedo does not exist… yet. But Beachcombing has been asking himself – how could you convince the local population or parts of that population that it did. After all, any fool can dress up in a monkey’s suit and scare some campers – though be careful there is a lot of hunting in the province… But only a genius or Goebbels can create a conviction in the mind of a group so that the group starts to see and hear the non-existent Monster while out on their own walks.
Ideally, Beachcombing wants to spend a couple of months on this and no more, coming back to Mondoñedo in the 2050s (if by some miracle he is still around) to find that there are regular sightings, a couple of organisations dedicated to tracking ‘the beast’ and MoM tee-shirts for sale in the local shops.
So is monster creation possible? And, if so, how best to go about it? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Beachcombing would limit all his activities to three conspirators including himself: the possibility of anyone squealing has to be high and, let’s face it, anyone foolish enough to get involved will not be a particularly reliable human being… He would then break activities down into four steps.
I. May and June, Beachcombing turns up in the Mondoñedo area and leaves a series of large ‘big foot’ style prints on the outskirts of woods and on the heights. Beachcombing also uses a massive mike to regale the sleeping valleys with characteristic MoM roars – a cross between a lemur in heat and a wolf on its last hunt… Beachcombing will, finally, take a couple of dated Polaroid shots of the prints and a recording of the howl. This is for later consumption – see below III.
Likely effect: no news stories – unless the MoM teams gets lucky – but these incidents will be remembered by locals when the first breathless report comes in.
II. Conspirator two, a German ‘tourist’, turns up for a holiday in Mondoñedo in July in the ‘silly season’ when news stories in Europe are at an absolute low. One evening – the MoM is nocturnal and hence rarely seen – said tourist has a terrifying encounter with the MoM (Beachcombing without any clothes) in the woods at dusk. German tourist only brings back some blurred images on his mobile phone: but when uploaded to youtube there are glimpses of fur and that strange roaring sound.
Likely effect: all will depend now on the media. But if handled properly – Wikipedia entries, earnest wordpress blog… – the story will race through the web, particularly if the video is blurred enough to create discussion, and from there on to the national news agencies desperate for stories in a dry season. Do you really think that Yahoo, say, would hold back?
III. Conspirator three, a freelance journalist from Dublin, fluent in Spanish and with just enough Galician/Portuguese to attempt conversations with locals (but preferably not enough to guarantee the accuracy of reported conversations) arrives in August. He interviews the German tourist (conspirator number two) but also the locals who heard the howls and perhaps saw the prints back in May and June. Crucially, he makes sure that he interviews ‘reliable’ witnesses – ex military types, forest rangers, policemen, retired court judge, priests… And when he publishes his feature, in a Madrid and London daily (simultaneously), he is careful that much is made of these witnesses’ reliability and the fact that they personally saw the prints or heard the MoM racket. He has also been given the dated photographs and recordings alluded to above by ‘an influential member of the local community who does not wish to be named’.
Likely effect: heightened local and international interest as the sightings and ‘hearings’ are affirmed. The first MoM tourists begin to arrive and the local restaurants whip up a MoM tortilla. We are a year away from MoM road signs and campaigns to get the MoM declared an endangered species by the EU…
IV. By this time Spanish zoologists are getting understandably irritated as they field constant calls from the press and a zoo in Andalusia has admitted that it has lost a baboon. Credibility is being stretched to breaking point. Yet it is too risky for Beachcombing to go out with the fake footprints. Conspirator number three – the freelancer – has been then busy doing research in Galician folklore. ‘Apparently’ there is a monster in Galician legend that has hair and eats people (or some variance on this): could this be the proof that the MoM has always been out there in Galician badlands? Damn right! Then, as the freelancer ‘discovers’, the province of Lugo is the most traditional in northern Spain and there are still locals who believe in witches and talk of fairies – with some juggling these could be read as memories of early modern encounters with the MoM.
Likely effect: the greatest weakness in the MoM project is the lack of a back-story. Stage four is about giving the man in the gorilla suit a coat of arms.
So would it work? Would Mondoñedans start seeing and hearing something that was not there? Beachcombing doesn’t know, but there is an outstanding documentary film to be made if the three conspirators have the gumption and the necessary lack of scruples.
Before signing off Beachcombing will mention that he has recently been reading and enjoying Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind. Here is an extract from said book (95-97) with application to the MoM:
Sat up late one night with my flatmate in Bristol, we thought it would be mature and responsible to start a local tarantula scare. I had long since graduated and had little do other than the occasional magic gig and pay in my housing benefit cheques, and Simon, a philosophy student, understandably didn’t have very much to do at all. So a couple of nights later we walked casually through the dark and deserted streets of Clifton Village, giggling and smirking, pinning our posters on trees and posts. Warning they screamed in large black print above a photocopied picture of an orange-kneed tarantula. The poster explained that several of these spiders had been lost in transit to the zoo and were believed to have settled in the Clifton area. They would be mainly active at night, and would seek warm places during the day. They ‘should not be dangerous to adult humans if left undisturbed’ but any found should be reported as many of them were ‘believed to be carrying eggs’. At the bottom of the poster was the Tarantalert’ (oh yes) number to call if you were to find one. The number had been picked from the Yellow Pages, and was in fact an insurance company in Cardiff. We posted a few through key newsagents’ doors with instructions for them to display the poster for customers. We covered the sleeping square mile of Clifton Village with our rather nicely made posters and snuck back to the flat, still giggling like schoolboys.
DB then wreaks havoc trying to convince local green grocers that they have to individually inspect each piece of fruit. After this he and Simon decide to up the game…
One morning the local paper ran the story Spider Scare – A Hoax along with a condemnation from the zoo authorities and bewildered statements from an insurance company in Cardiff, which was suspected of being behind the stunt. Teletext, it was reported, had been duped and had run a big warning about ‘giant spiders’. Determined to have the last word, we thought we’d fabricate a spider and place it somewhere visible but inaccessible in the village. We decided that it would have to be made out of pipe-cleaners, as a simple fake spider bought from a toy-shop wouldn’t be funny enough. So eventually we made Boris, and late at night we attached him using one of Simon’s guitar plectra to the inside of the archway next to the Clifton Arcade… then covered him in cobweb spray. The next morning we went to start a crowd. We waited for a group of people to walk under the arch, then we ourselves contrived to walk under the arch, then we ourselves contrived to walk past them beneath it; only as we did so, one of us looked up and noticed our dodgy arachnid. After a while and a few starts, we managed to get a crowd gathered in the archway, looking at our ridiculous pipe-cleaner assembly crouching in the corner. People stayed and moved on, which meant that after a few regenerations of the crowd we were no longer known to have started the interest. Some people knew that the story had been reported as a hoax, but others weren’t sure. Of course we helpfully interjected our own stories of having known people who had actually seen the spiders. It also took only a few suggestions from us for the crowd to create the story, and believe it, that Boris had actually crawled across the wall at some point during the morning’s events. That was particularly rewarding. Someone suggested calling the local news, and of course we encouraged them. A cameraman came, and he asked [the green-grocers] if they had one of the spider posters to include in the shot. They helpfully gave him one of them, and he filmed the tarantula cowering several feet above it. Sadly he didn’t interview any of us, but he was accompanied by a well-dressed but very tense lady who spoke to him all the time from behind a clipboard with which she covered her mouth. I heard later she was from the zoo, which I hope was the case, though I suspect she was a news reporter. After several hours of standing about and re-telling and exaggerating the story to each fresh crowd member, one guy suggested that the spider looked false. We reminded him that it had crawled across the wall earlier on, but he was having none of it. Unable to protest, we had to watch as he climbed up the same wall we had used and poked at it with a rolled-up magazine. Its predictable lack of response brought relief from the crowd, and eventually he removed it from the wall with his stupid hands.
*Why Mondoñedo? Well, first, because it is, by sorry European standards, a wild area covered by forest and impenetrable bush and mountains. Second, because the world is full of very nice cryptozoologists – several link this website – who would be understandably irritated if Beachcombing created a monster flap on their doorsteps. Beachcombing has chosen then an area where cryptozoology has no claims. And third, because this can’t be too easy. It is, for Beachcombing (even in his most romantic moods), a ‘stretch’ to believe that an unidentified primate has survived for millennia in North America or the Himalayas without being captured or killed: but it is an absolute no-brainer for northern Iberia! This is all about convincing people that the impossible is possible.
***
23 April 2011: Michael from Dortmund proves that he has the necessary gumption and lack of scruples. He says that there should be a fifth stage ‘where Beachcombing kills the German tourist and freelancer thus keeping the conspiracy air-tight and getting a MoM curse going’! Thanks Michael!!
23 June 2011: Invisible writes ‘I really enjoyed the post where you proposed creating a cryptozoological myth about a Bigfoot-type creature in, I believe, a remote area of Spain. (The reader’s follow-up, suggesting killing the German tourist and adding a curse element to the story was also brilliant.) Found this on the Fortean Times website this morning.’ Your work?’ Beachcombing can promise that he had nothing to do with this, though there is an outside chance (?) that he inspired it. Thanks Invisible!
Cellini’s Canon April 20, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beachcombing has been thinking in the last hour about objects that are far travelled – for example the Indian buddhas that made it to Viking Scandinavia or, say, the Viking coin that (allegedly) ended up in pre-Columbian Maine. And it was while musing on these far-flung things that Cellini’s canon came to mind.
Now admittedly this object travelled in a shorter compass but it was, between its creation in the mid sixteenth century and its final firing in 1854, used by three different nations in their wars . As such perhaps it too deserves celebration…
The bronze canon was made by the renaissance genius Benvenuto Cellini between 1537 and 1545 when he was causing trouble at the court of the French king Francis I (obit 1547). It, in fact, has Cellini’s device emblazoned upon it.
The next phase of the canon’s biography is the most obscure because it somehow changed country ending in the hands of the Spanish crown: it has been suggested that it was captured in one of France’s Italian wars. Certainly it very likely went over to the enemy through conflict rather than as a gift or purchase.
Here, in any case, Cellini’s canon entered the most exciting, if disastrous phase of its life. It was, in 1588, loaded on to a Spanish galleon – variously called the Florida or the San Juan de Sicilia: the boat’s identity is uncertain – and sent off to join the Armada on its planned invasion of Elizabeth’s England.
The canon’s ship – by whichever name it went – was not as unlucky as some of its comrades. It was not caught by English fire-ships or even wrecked by winds on the unforgiving British shore. Rather it was one of the survivors that tried, unwisely perhaps, to escape back to Spain by passing north around Scotland and then down through the Irish Sea to Biscay.
Here, however, catastrophe struck. The Spanish vessel dropped anchor off Mull, in Tobermory Bay to bring on provisions and prepare for the homeward voyage. The crew had enough powder to keep the locals off so there was no danger there. The problem was that their captain foolishly got embroiled in a local clan war (another post, another day) that ended with his ship being blown up in the water: likely by a Scottish prisoner who carried out a suicide attack.
Cellini’s canon disappeared with the vessel into the dark waters of Tobermory Bay. The memory of the wreck – said by some to be carry the treasure of the Armada – meant though that already in 1661 diving expeditions were sent down to retrieve gold.
Beachcombing might note paranthetically that some of these seventeenth-century trips used diving bells: perhaps like those described in a mermaid tale set in these times and associated with the Isle of Man; a story which was recently published here.
Slowly objects were picked up out of the smashed pieces of timber and Cellini’s gun was finally pulled, glugging, from the depths in 1740 – after almost two hundred years in the salt.
It found a new home at Inveraray Castle, the home of the Duke of Argyll, who holds rights over the sunken Spanish vessel. And here Cellini’s masterpiece had its final moment of martial glory when it was fired in the reign of Queen Victoria in 1854 to celebrate Alma, the first Allied victory of the Crimean War.
There was some justice in this as, of course, the French – the original owners of the gun, the Piedmontese – the closest there was to Cellini’s Italy at this date – and the Scots (as part of the British army) were all fighting on the Allied side.
Beachcombing is always on the look out for objects with unusual histories particularly if they involve treasure troves: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
John and Paul, the Patagonian Giants March 26, 2011
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Antonio Pigafeta aka Antonio Lombardo (obit 1531) was a lucky man. He was one of 17 of circa 230 men to make it back from Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world. He was also a fine writer and described in his Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (1524) Magellan’s adventures, death and the mission’s return to Spain. Pigafetta is sometimes a confusing narrator – he is not always very lineal. He is also very much a medieval Christian seeing existence, even in distant and foreign lands through the lens of the Gospels and his ‘familiar’ saints. But there is no reason for thinking him particularly unreliable. Perhaps the worst that can be said of his account is that as neither his manuscript nor his diaries survive we cannot always be sure of how much came from his own pen and how much was elaboration. Unfortunately, for those who like their history boring his descriptions of the giants of Patagonia are very much his own work…
We remained thirteen days in this country of Verzin, and, departing from it and following our course, we went as far as thirty-four degrees and a third towards the Antarctic pole; there we found, near a river, men whom they call ‘cannibals’, who eat human flesh, and one of these men, great as a giant, came to the captain’s ship to ascertain and ask if the others might come. This man had a voice like a bull, and while this man was at the ship his companions carried off all their goods which they had to a castle further off, from fear of us. Seeing that, we landed a hundred men from the ships, and went after them to try and catch some others; however they gained in running away. This kind of people did more with one step than we could do at a bound…
This description has nothing particularly troubling. It seems as if Magellan’s crew came upon a particularly tall native. Then too impressions of dimensions are also easily distorted when meeting a completely new and unexpected culture.
Still as Magellan’s tiny fleet moves further to the west some of Pigafetta’s accounts become a little harder to explain away.
Departing thence as far as forty nine degrees and a half in the Antarctic heavens (as we were in the winter), we entered into a port to pass the winter, and remained there two whole months without ever seeing anybody. However, one day, without anyone expecting it, we saw a giant, who was on the shore of the sea, quite naked, and was dancing and leaping, and singing, and whilst singing he put sand and dust on his head. Our captain sent one of his men towards him, whom he charged to sing and leap like the other to reassure him, and to show him friendship. This he did, and immediately the sailor led this giant to a little island where the captain was waiting for him; and when he was before us he began to be astonished, and to be afraid, and be raised one finger on high thinking that we came from heaven. He was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist; however, he was well built.
‘He was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist…’ Is Pigafetta misremembering a startling encounter? Is the correcting ‘he was well built’ meant to communicate that this giant was exceptional even among his own people? If the answer to the second question is yes we are still though talking about an individual who is twelve feet high… Just to give a sense of scale, the picture above is of Robert Wadlow who was almost nine feet tall and who suffered from gigantism with abnormally long legs.
Magellan and his men gradually build up a trusting relationship with the locals, shocking them with mirrors (‘when the giant saw his likeness in it, he was greatly terrified, leaping backwards, and made three or four of our men fall down’) and giving out trinkets – the colonial glass bead game.
Again and again though it is the dimensions of the giants that strike our author:
Then these men came, who carried only their bows in their hands; but their wives came after them laden like donkeys, and carried their goods. Those women are not as tall as the men, but they are sufficiently large. When we saw them we were all amazed and astonished, for they had breasts half an ell [about five feet] long, and had their faces painted, and were dressed like the men. But they wore a small skin before them to cover themselves. They brought with them four of those little beasts of which they make their clothing [llama], and they led them with a cord in the manner of dogs coupled together.
If an ell really is about five feet long and if the women were smaller than the men and if our twelve foot giant was exceptional even in Patagonia then are we still dealing with, what, eight foot women? Of course, any number of these could be exaggerations and misremembering.
In that distant hazy, southern winter friendships of sorts were struck up.
Six days after, our people on going to cut wood, saw another giant, with his face painted and clothed like the above, he had in his hand a bow and arrows, and approaching our people he made some touches on his head and then on his body, and afterwards did the same to our people. And this being done he raised both his hands to heaven. When the captain-general knew all this, he sent to fetch him with his ship’s boat, and brought him to one of the little islands which are in the port, where the ships were. In this island the captain had caused a house to be made for putting some of the ships’ things in whilst he remained there. This giant was of a still better disposition than the others, and was a gracious and amiable person, who liked to dance and leap. When he leapt he caused the earth to sink in a palm depth at the place where his feet touched.
Once more Beachcombing’s must point to Pigafetta’s memory of the enormous size of these giants.
He was a long time with us, and at the end we baptised him, and gave him the name of John. This giant pronounced the name of Jesus, the Pater noster, Ave Maria, and his name as clearly as we did: but he had a terribly strong and loud voice. The captain gave him a shirt and a tunic of cloth, and seaman’s breeches [to wear?], a cap, a comb, some bells, and other things, and sent him back to where he had come from. He went away very joyous and satisfied. The next day this giant returned, and brought one of those large animals before mentioned [llama], for which the captain gave him some other things, so that he should bring more. But afterwards he did not return, and it is to be presumed that the other giants killed him because he had come to us.
In fact, relations with the locals now sour as Magellan’s men take a prisoner, alienating the rest of the tribe. Soon after the ships move on.
The captain named this kind of people Pataghom [Patagonians, big feet], who have no houses, but have huts made of the skins of the animals with which they clothe themselves, and go hither and thither with these huts of theirs, as the gypsies do; they live on raw meat, and eat a certain sweet root, which they call Capac. These two giants that we had in the ship ate a large basketful of biscuit, and rats without skinning them, and they drank half a bucket of water at a time.
Despite rumours circulating for centuries afterwards no people resembling these amiable giants were ever discovered: and it goes without saying that Magellan’s prisoner – baptised as Paul – did not make it to Europe. So how do we explain this concrete source describing impossibly large people? Beachcombing would appeal to memory tricks and the distortion of the senses in an exotic setting – perhaps you don’t need to draw the margins of maps to see dogheads. But still… Weird. Any other explanations or sightings of big folk: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
