1 00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:04,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 2 00:00:04,480 --> 00:00:08,840 Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised. 3 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:16,079 Speaker 1: One quick note before we begin. I wrote a book. 4 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:20,239 Speaker 1: It's a novel called Anatomy, a love story about a 5 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: surgeon and a body snatcher in nineteen century Edinburgh. And 6 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:26,720 Speaker 1: if you like Noble Blood, I have a feeling that 7 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:29,760 Speaker 1: you're really really going to like it. I'm really proud 8 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:32,120 Speaker 1: of it, and I'm never proud of anything that I 9 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:36,720 Speaker 1: write anyway. It's available for preorder now, and preorder is 10 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:39,199 Speaker 1: extremely weird, you know, to buy a book that's not 11 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:42,839 Speaker 1: going to come out until February, but it's actually really 12 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:46,239 Speaker 1: important for authors. My publisher is going to look at 13 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:50,360 Speaker 1: those preorder numbers and make their decision based on them 14 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:52,839 Speaker 1: about where to put the book and how many eyeballs 15 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,200 Speaker 1: to put in front of. So if you're at all 16 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:57,800 Speaker 1: interested in the book, it would mean the world to 17 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:00,760 Speaker 1: me if you checked it out and maybe gave future 18 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:03,279 Speaker 1: you a surprise gift. If we are ever in the 19 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:05,520 Speaker 1: same city, I promise I will track you down and 20 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:08,360 Speaker 1: sign it for you. The link to the preorders is 21 00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:17,320 Speaker 1: in the bio, and so now into the episode. This 22 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:22,040 Speaker 1: episode is a little bit different. It's our fifty episode 23 00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:25,360 Speaker 1: of Noble Blood, and so rather than focus on just 24 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:30,720 Speaker 1: one story, I'm going to focus on five, five historical 25 00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:34,800 Speaker 1: myths that, for whatever reason, have persisted to this day. 26 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:39,960 Speaker 1: Sometimes I think understanding which lies spread and why can 27 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:44,080 Speaker 1: be just as important as understanding the actual truth. So 28 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:48,200 Speaker 1: let's dive in. First up, it has to be. First up, 29 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:54,559 Speaker 1: it's most important. Let the meat cake. Everyone has heard 30 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:58,120 Speaker 1: this story. In fact, when you think about Marie Antoinette, 31 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:01,160 Speaker 1: it's probably the first thing that you think of. The 32 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:06,520 Speaker 1: story goes that starving peasants wearing their dustiest rags, gaunt 33 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:10,919 Speaker 1: with hunger and poverty, come to Versailles, the gilded palace, 34 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:13,960 Speaker 1: in which Marie Antoinette and her husband feasted on bond 35 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,200 Speaker 1: bonds under painted ceilings. Please, one of the peasants say, 36 00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:22,600 Speaker 1: his giant eyes turned up hopefully towards the queen. The 37 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,400 Speaker 1: people of France don't have any bread to eat. Marie 38 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:30,840 Speaker 1: Antoinette rolls her eyes and sighs, annoyed that she has 39 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:35,320 Speaker 1: to look at a poor person. Her painted lips curled devilishly, 40 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:40,959 Speaker 1: and she replies, let them eat cake. As far as 41 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:45,640 Speaker 1: setups and punchlines go, there's practically nothing better. It's the 42 00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:49,959 Speaker 1: catty bon moo equivalent of Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development 43 00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:54,760 Speaker 1: thinking that a banana costs ten dollars. It's little wonder 44 00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:59,280 Speaker 1: that the story caught on and on and on. This 45 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:03,000 Speaker 1: smith Bus thing is a double act. The first myth 46 00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:06,280 Speaker 1: to bust is that, as pedants left to point out, 47 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:12,240 Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette would have actually said la brioche, which pardoning 48 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:18,480 Speaker 1: my awful French pronunciation, means let them eat brioche. Brioche 49 00:03:18,480 --> 00:03:22,160 Speaker 1: refers to an incredibly rich bread made with butter and 50 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:25,800 Speaker 1: with eggs. It's as good as cake to an eighteenth 51 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:30,360 Speaker 1: century French peasant, and so Marie Antoinette saying let them 52 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:34,440 Speaker 1: eat brioche is basically just a more specific variation on 53 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:38,760 Speaker 1: the same punchline. But the more important correction is that 54 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:43,040 Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette never told peasants to eat cake or brioche, 55 00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:48,560 Speaker 1: or croissant or any pastry. Before and during the French Revolution, 56 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:52,720 Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette became a scapegoat to represent all of the 57 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,640 Speaker 1: ills of the second estate, the ruling nobility of France, 58 00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:00,600 Speaker 1: the elite upper class, not only would she the most 59 00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:04,800 Speaker 1: visible consumer of the French royal family with her expensive 60 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:10,040 Speaker 1: clothes and elaborate hairstyles, but also she was foreign in Austrian, 61 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:12,840 Speaker 1: which meant that people were primed from the beginning to 62 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:21,839 Speaker 1: hate her. The first recorded variation on the quote let 63 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:26,200 Speaker 1: them eat cake story actually comes from a sixteenth century 64 00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:30,640 Speaker 1: German story about a noblewoman who wonders aloud why poor 65 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,920 Speaker 1: people who can't afford bread just don't eat the pastry 66 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,920 Speaker 1: cross um. The story came to France two hundred years later, 67 00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:42,919 Speaker 1: or at least it was popularized in Rousseau's Confessions, in 68 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:47,280 Speaker 1: which he attributes the quote to an anonymous princess, most 69 00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:51,000 Speaker 1: likely just meaning it apocryphal lee. At the time that 70 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:55,320 Speaker 1: Rousseau was writing, Marie Antoinette was nine years old. She 71 00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:59,360 Speaker 1: was the younger sister of princesses in Austria, not at 72 00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:01,640 Speaker 1: all in line to be married to the Prince of France. 73 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:04,800 Speaker 1: Yet and Rousseau would not have cared at all what 74 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:08,880 Speaker 1: she was up to. The little preteen princess known as 75 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:13,560 Speaker 1: Maria Antonio was not spouting poetic about the French population 76 00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:20,200 Speaker 1: and their lack of brioche consumption. I'm a known defender 77 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:24,359 Speaker 1: of Marie Antoinette, which seems like a strange thing to say, 78 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:27,800 Speaker 1: but I do think it's interesting and important to look 79 00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:31,719 Speaker 1: at Marie Antoinette's life and role as it would have 80 00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:36,640 Speaker 1: been established in the framework of eighteenth century French politics. 81 00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:39,520 Speaker 1: She was told and raised to be the queen of 82 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:43,040 Speaker 1: a country from the age of fourteen. She was married 83 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:46,440 Speaker 1: to the Dafais France, and her role was not political. 84 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:50,119 Speaker 1: It wasn't her decision to make what the French people 85 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:53,520 Speaker 1: were taxed or what the government was spending its money on. 86 00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:59,200 Speaker 1: Her role really was to wear clothes by French designers 87 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:05,080 Speaker 1: and spawn sir French hairstylists and throw parties and entertained diplomats. 88 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:09,880 Speaker 1: She was raised for a very specific role and purpose that, unfortunately, 89 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:13,960 Speaker 1: by the end of the eighteenth century became obsolete, and 90 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:17,160 Speaker 1: I would argue for good reason, but in her own 91 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:22,440 Speaker 1: tiny bubble raised her entire life in a elaborate court ritual, 92 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:26,640 Speaker 1: a tradition. Marie Antoinette, by all accounts, was a kind 93 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:31,000 Speaker 1: and generous person. There are stories of Marie Antoinette stopping 94 00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:33,600 Speaker 1: her carriage because she saw a child on the side 95 00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:36,800 Speaker 1: of the road, and then in effect adopting that child 96 00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:42,680 Speaker 1: to pay for their education and comfortable lifestyle. As an individual, 97 00:06:42,839 --> 00:06:45,520 Speaker 1: she was kind and tried to help poor people, but 98 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:50,640 Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette had no education, interest, or really even role 99 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:53,160 Speaker 1: when it came to helping the poor people of France 100 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:56,920 Speaker 1: as a whole. It's interesting also that she's painted as 101 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:01,800 Speaker 1: so out of touch and eliteau, which again she was. 102 00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:06,240 Speaker 1: But Marie Antoinette, as an individual, loved this idea of 103 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:10,760 Speaker 1: painting herself as a farm girl or woman of the people. 104 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:16,200 Speaker 1: At Versailles, she built a tiny village that was meant 105 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:20,440 Speaker 1: to represent a French farm village, where she would shed 106 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:23,720 Speaker 1: all of the layers of her court finery, put on 107 00:07:24,040 --> 00:07:29,000 Speaker 1: simple linen peasant wear, and in effect play poor person 108 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:33,040 Speaker 1: for an afternoon. She would milk goats and cows and 109 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:37,160 Speaker 1: take fresh eggs from chickens, although of course all of 110 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:40,520 Speaker 1: the fresh eggs that she was taking from chickens would 111 00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:44,480 Speaker 1: have been removed prior to Marie Antoine, it coming wiped 112 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:48,640 Speaker 1: down of all the chicken viscera and then replaced underneath 113 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:52,920 Speaker 1: the chicken. It was basically a disnified version of what 114 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:57,000 Speaker 1: being a peasant was like. Now that I say it, 115 00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:01,280 Speaker 1: I recognize how wildly out of touch that seems, but 116 00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:05,400 Speaker 1: there's something almost quaint about it, I find. But of course, 117 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:08,880 Speaker 1: when the French Revolution came, she was the Queen of France, 118 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:13,960 Speaker 1: the female head of this incredibly destructive and archaic institution, 119 00:08:14,520 --> 00:08:23,720 Speaker 1: and so that had had to quite literally roll. Rousseau's 120 00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:28,000 Speaker 1: writing was incredibly influential to the revolutionaries who would overthrow 121 00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:32,480 Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette and the entire French monarchy. So it's more 122 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:36,720 Speaker 1: than likely that they conflated his anecdotal story with their 123 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:41,839 Speaker 1: queen because it's so thematically perfect. But the debunking has 124 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:46,240 Speaker 1: been going on almost ever since. Fifty years after the 125 00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:50,080 Speaker 1: French Revolution, a writer in the French journal leg Whip 126 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:52,719 Speaker 1: said that he could prove that the let Them Eat 127 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:56,280 Speaker 1: Cake rumor about Marie Antoinette was false because he had 128 00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:59,800 Speaker 1: found the quote in a book dated seventeen sixty. But 129 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:03,439 Speaker 1: that debunking didn't really take nor did the next, nor 130 00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:07,400 Speaker 1: did the next. A good story spreads faster than a 131 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,120 Speaker 1: boring truth, especially when it's a story that fits our 132 00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:15,800 Speaker 1: preconceived notions about who a person is. Let Them Eat 133 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:19,599 Speaker 1: Cake is perhaps one of the most effective propaganda campaigns 134 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:22,800 Speaker 1: in history, because even more than two hundred years later, 135 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:26,360 Speaker 1: it's still the most famous thing about a woman who 136 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:34,880 Speaker 1: never said it. Next up the classic rumor that Napoleon 137 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:38,960 Speaker 1: and Parra of France was short. It's a rumor so 138 00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:42,880 Speaker 1: pervasive that there's even a complex named after it in 139 00:09:42,920 --> 00:09:47,800 Speaker 1: which someone adopts a personality of overaggression or domineering behavior 140 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:52,640 Speaker 1: in order to compensate for being short. The rumor about 141 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:57,760 Speaker 1: Napoleon being unnaturally short is a rumor with a seemingly 142 00:09:57,880 --> 00:10:02,200 Speaker 1: simple explanation. A according to the French measurement system at 143 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:06,400 Speaker 1: the time, Napoleon was five to objectively on the shorter 144 00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:09,679 Speaker 1: side for a man, but the metric system hadn't yet 145 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:13,880 Speaker 1: normalized measurements across Europe, and the French inch at the 146 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:18,160 Speaker 1: time was two point seven centimeters while the Imperial inch 147 00:10:18,640 --> 00:10:22,240 Speaker 1: is two point five four centimeters, which means that by 148 00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:26,080 Speaker 1: modern metrics, Napoleon would have stood a little bit above 149 00:10:26,080 --> 00:10:29,360 Speaker 1: five five, or just about average height for a man 150 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:33,000 Speaker 1: at the time. Another factor that contributed to the idea 151 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,960 Speaker 1: that Napoleon was short was that he would have surrounded 152 00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:40,280 Speaker 1: himself with his most elite soldiers, who were incredibly tall, 153 00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:46,280 Speaker 1: genetically blessed Frenchman. Anyone flanked by two eighteenth century Parisian 154 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:50,640 Speaker 1: shacks would look short by comparison, and the idea of 155 00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:55,800 Speaker 1: Napoleon being short took root in British propaganda. The cartoonist 156 00:10:55,920 --> 00:11:00,760 Speaker 1: James Gilray was incredibly influential, especially with his drawings of 157 00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:05,880 Speaker 1: the quote maniac Ravings of Little Bony, in which Napoleon 158 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:09,960 Speaker 1: is depicted as a tantramming toddler in boots half the 159 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:14,320 Speaker 1: size of his body. Another famous Gilray drawing, titled The 160 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:19,000 Speaker 1: plum Putting of Danger, features Napoleon across a dinner table 161 00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:22,800 Speaker 1: from the British Prime Minister William Pitt. While the pair 162 00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:26,320 Speaker 1: of men divide up a dessert meant to depict the globe. 163 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:31,200 Speaker 1: Pitt is depicted as tall and lanky, with legs that 164 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:36,560 Speaker 1: are practically skeletal. Cartoons are all about contrast, and so Napoleon, 165 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:43,199 Speaker 1: practically hidden beneath the large hat, is tiny. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 166 00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:49,080 Speaker 1: the cartoons infuriated Napoleon. He sent a barrage of letters 167 00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:53,640 Speaker 1: across the Channel demanding that the British government censored depictions 168 00:11:53,640 --> 00:11:57,840 Speaker 1: of him in their press. Surprise, surprise, the British government 169 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:03,000 Speaker 1: did not heed his request, and that left Napoleon between 170 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:07,160 Speaker 1: a rock and a hard place. Getting angrier about it 171 00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:10,480 Speaker 1: would only make him look like the short, ill tempered 172 00:12:10,520 --> 00:12:18,000 Speaker 1: toddler with something to compensate for. The next rumor is 173 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:21,200 Speaker 1: one that verges a little bit on the pornographic, so 174 00:12:21,320 --> 00:12:24,920 Speaker 1: if you're listening with a younger listener, you might want 175 00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:30,440 Speaker 1: to fast forward a little bit. This is the rumor 176 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:34,600 Speaker 1: about Catherine the Great. Maybe you've heard of it, that 177 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:39,040 Speaker 1: the female Empress of Russia died while having sex with 178 00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:43,480 Speaker 1: a horse. Enemies of Catherine the Great long painted her 179 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:47,000 Speaker 1: as a sexual deviant. She did have a number of 180 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:51,559 Speaker 1: sexual relationships after her one ill fated marriage too, Zar 181 00:12:51,640 --> 00:12:55,040 Speaker 1: Peter the Third, although not a number of relationships that 182 00:12:55,080 --> 00:12:57,840 Speaker 1: would have raised eyebrows if she had been a male ruler. 183 00:12:58,640 --> 00:13:02,040 Speaker 1: When Catherine was a teen major, a minor German princess 184 00:13:02,080 --> 00:13:04,760 Speaker 1: who was still named Sophie at the time, she was 185 00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:07,840 Speaker 1: married off to Peter the Third, who was to be 186 00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,760 Speaker 1: brief terrible at being a czar. To make a long 187 00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:16,760 Speaker 1: story extremely short, Catherine overthrew her husband with the help 188 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:20,960 Speaker 1: of her lover, Gregory or Love. From there. Catholick's romantic 189 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:25,720 Speaker 1: partners were usually also her political partners. She tended to 190 00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:30,080 Speaker 1: be attracted to men like Gregory Patempkin with a military 191 00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:34,360 Speaker 1: and political mind who could help her rule the incredibly 192 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:38,520 Speaker 1: vast Empire of Russia. It's a side effect of being 193 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:42,720 Speaker 1: a woman with power that terrible rumors start to spread eventually, 194 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:48,760 Speaker 1: and Catherine's personality encouraged certain rumors to some degree. There 195 00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:53,680 Speaker 1: were the aforementioned partners. Even into her middle and older age, 196 00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:57,600 Speaker 1: Catherine continued to take lovers, many of whom were men 197 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:01,520 Speaker 1: much younger than she was. And it's also believed that 198 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:05,920 Speaker 1: Catherine kept a small room adjacent to her suite where 199 00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:11,679 Speaker 1: she kept pornographic materials and erotica, including furniture carved with 200 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:16,840 Speaker 1: explicit and X rated naked figures. During World War Two, 201 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:23,160 Speaker 1: German soldiers raiding the palace in supposedly found the secret 202 00:14:23,240 --> 00:14:26,880 Speaker 1: rooms and took photos of the furniture, but since then 203 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:30,080 Speaker 1: the furniture was either lost in the chaos of war 204 00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:34,720 Speaker 1: or purposefully removed by the Russian government to protect the 205 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:40,040 Speaker 1: royal family's virtue. But none of that quite explains the 206 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:45,080 Speaker 1: extremeness and specificity of the story that so many of 207 00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:48,680 Speaker 1: us have heard about Catherine the Great, That she was 208 00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:54,280 Speaker 1: engaging in beastiality with a horse suspended above her when 209 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:59,240 Speaker 1: the horses harness broke and crushed her to death. I 210 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,720 Speaker 1: hate killing a fun rumor as much as the next person, 211 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:06,800 Speaker 1: but it's not true. Catherine died of a stroke at 212 00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:10,560 Speaker 1: age sixty seven in her bed not having sex with 213 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:14,440 Speaker 1: a horse. Insane as it sounds, though that horse rumor 214 00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:18,280 Speaker 1: didn't quite come out of nowhere. At the time, the 215 00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:22,800 Speaker 1: notion of quote riding a horse was a common euphemism 216 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:27,840 Speaker 1: for female sexuality, and Catherine, who frequently wore male bridges 217 00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:33,200 Speaker 1: and military dress, was also a famed equestrian. An actual equestrian, 218 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:37,240 Speaker 1: she was incredibly adept at riding a horse, so that's 219 00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:41,280 Speaker 1: basically the origin of the rumor that she was more 220 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:45,400 Speaker 1: sexually promiscuous than might have been expected of a woman 221 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:50,960 Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century, and that she was really good 222 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:57,239 Speaker 1: and really interested in riding horses. And rumors, especially colorful rumors, 223 00:15:57,280 --> 00:16:01,880 Speaker 1: are hard to kill. Propaganda against the Empress was extremely 224 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:05,880 Speaker 1: common in her lifetime, both in Russia and abroad. When 225 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:09,400 Speaker 1: Catherine the Great, who was a frequent pen pal of Voltaire, 226 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:14,160 Speaker 1: didn't throw her support behind the French revolutionaries during their revolt, 227 00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:18,880 Speaker 1: they showed their lack of appreciation with a series of 228 00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:24,160 Speaker 1: particularly harsh caricatures, although you can't really blame any monarch 229 00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:30,400 Speaker 1: for not supporting the group overthrowing and beheading monarchs. And 230 00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:33,280 Speaker 1: then when it comes to legacy, it also didn't help 231 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:36,480 Speaker 1: Catherine the Great that the next to inherit the Russian throne, 232 00:16:36,880 --> 00:16:41,200 Speaker 1: her son Paul the First, hated and resented her. But 233 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:44,320 Speaker 1: I suppose when it comes to legacy for Catherine the 234 00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:48,160 Speaker 1: Great it's a mixed bag. We may half believe that 235 00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:53,200 Speaker 1: she died in a outrageous act of sexual grotesquery, but 236 00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:57,320 Speaker 1: then again we do still refer to her as the Great. 237 00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:09,800 Speaker 1: There are some rumors that aren't really commonly discussed anymore, 238 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:14,520 Speaker 1: but which were at one time wildly popular conspiracy theories, 239 00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:19,440 Speaker 1: namely that Elizabeth the First, England's long reigning female monarch, 240 00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,600 Speaker 1: the Virgin Queen who ushered in an era of artistic 241 00:17:23,680 --> 00:17:30,119 Speaker 1: and domestic prosperity, was actually a man. The popularizer of 242 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:34,199 Speaker 1: this myth was actually the author from Stoker, who you 243 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:39,199 Speaker 1: probably know for his book Dracula. Soaker also wrote a 244 00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:44,320 Speaker 1: book published in nine called Famous Impostors, in which he 245 00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:49,119 Speaker 1: claimed that Queen Elizabeth was actually replaced by a male 246 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:52,399 Speaker 1: doppelganger when she was a child, and that it was 247 00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:56,720 Speaker 1: he the doppelganger who was actually ruling during the Great 248 00:17:56,840 --> 00:18:02,080 Speaker 1: Elizabethan Age. Stoker had been traveling through the Cotswalds of 249 00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:06,160 Speaker 1: England when he found himself in a small village where 250 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,840 Speaker 1: for their May Day celebration they had a small boy 251 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:14,600 Speaker 1: dress up as Elizabeth. When Stoker inquired as to the 252 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:19,320 Speaker 1: origins of the tradition, they told him this story that 253 00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:24,240 Speaker 1: when Princess Elizabeth was young, sometime around fifteen forty three 254 00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,680 Speaker 1: or forty four, she had been sent to that village 255 00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,480 Speaker 1: of Bristly in the Cotswalts to avoid the threat of 256 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:35,360 Speaker 1: plague that was so deadly in the more densely populated city. 257 00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:40,720 Speaker 1: But while Elizabeth was there on her countryside retreat, she died, 258 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:48,040 Speaker 1: whether of the plague or another unspecified illness. Princess Elizabeth's governess, 259 00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,479 Speaker 1: knowing that Elizabeth's father, King Henry, was famous for his temper, 260 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,880 Speaker 1: decided that she would hide the Princess's death before King 261 00:18:56,920 --> 00:18:59,720 Speaker 1: Henry came out to the countryside to visit his daughter. 262 00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:04,480 Speaker 1: The governess had a small problem. There were no young 263 00:19:04,600 --> 00:19:08,240 Speaker 1: girls in the village who at all resembled the pale 264 00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:12,679 Speaker 1: red haired Elizabeth. But there was a young boy, a 265 00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:18,200 Speaker 1: little playmate of the deceased Elizabeth, who had surprisingly delicate features, 266 00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:22,680 Speaker 1: who was fair with light eyes and light hair. With 267 00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:27,399 Speaker 1: time until the king's visit running short, the governess decided 268 00:19:27,520 --> 00:19:31,440 Speaker 1: to dress the little boy up in Elizabeth's clothing and 269 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:35,679 Speaker 1: hoped for the best. King Henry, who was either in 270 00:19:35,760 --> 00:19:39,159 Speaker 1: a hurry or not quite sure what his daughter looked like. 271 00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:42,960 Speaker 1: After a few months, apart fully believed the Khan, and 272 00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:47,040 Speaker 1: so from that time on, the young country boy became 273 00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:50,920 Speaker 1: the Princess Elizabeth, and the real princess, who had died, 274 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:57,240 Speaker 1: was buried anonymously somewhere in a quiet Cotswald's grave. Supposedly 275 00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:01,760 Speaker 1: three hundred years later, the Reallizabeth's body was dug up 276 00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:06,920 Speaker 1: accidentally during some building work. The body was conveniently reburied 277 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:11,320 Speaker 1: without anyone doing an actual examination or knowing where it 278 00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:15,920 Speaker 1: was buried, but the Cotswald's May Day tradition was born. 279 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,040 Speaker 1: There are a couple of factors that might tempt someone 280 00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:29,320 Speaker 1: to suspect that maybe Elizabeth was a man, outside of 281 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:32,119 Speaker 1: just the basic sexism of not wanting to believe a 282 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:36,880 Speaker 1: woman could effectively rule a country. She famously wore thick 283 00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:40,520 Speaker 1: powder makeup, although the real reason was that she wore 284 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:44,800 Speaker 1: it to cover up smallpox scars and not stubble, and 285 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:49,720 Speaker 1: Elizabeth famously never married or had children. Being a virgin 286 00:20:49,840 --> 00:20:53,880 Speaker 1: queen married to England would be a convenient cover if 287 00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:57,160 Speaker 1: she were actually a man who couldn't go to bed 288 00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:02,000 Speaker 1: with some random foreign prints. But the most compelling evidence 289 00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:06,600 Speaker 1: for some less than enlightened spirits was the power of 290 00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:10,760 Speaker 1: her leadership. Her speeches were rousing, she had a temper, 291 00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:15,480 Speaker 1: she was controlling, She was an incredible leader. In short, 292 00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:22,080 Speaker 1: she was all of the traits stereotypically assigned to male monarchs. 293 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,960 Speaker 1: As I'm sure you can catch on, there is no 294 00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:31,880 Speaker 1: truth to the rumors. Elizabeth was examined by a number 295 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,119 Speaker 1: of doctors throughout her life, and none of them mentioned 296 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:39,560 Speaker 1: that she had male anatomy at all. And also, at 297 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,440 Speaker 1: various points in her life there were nurses and ladies 298 00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:46,360 Speaker 1: who were bribed by suitors or politicians to inform them 299 00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,720 Speaker 1: as to whether Elizabeth was still having her monthly bleeding. 300 00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:52,240 Speaker 1: I eat to let them know if she was still 301 00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:55,960 Speaker 1: of child bearing years all of that is to say 302 00:21:56,080 --> 00:22:00,200 Speaker 1: Elizabeth was absolutely a woman, and the idea of her 303 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,480 Speaker 1: secretly being replaced by a male doppelganger by a governess 304 00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:08,000 Speaker 1: in a moment of panic is a fun story and 305 00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:11,400 Speaker 1: a fun origin to a tradition of a village where 306 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 1: they dress a young boy up in costume, but not 307 00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:22,400 Speaker 1: much else. In the vein of impostors and conspiracy theories, 308 00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:26,119 Speaker 1: here's a conspiracy theory that some people actually believe to 309 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,880 Speaker 1: this day that the son of Marie Antoinette and King 310 00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:34,560 Speaker 1: Louis the sixteenth of France, Louis Charles, the Lost Aufhen, 311 00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:40,719 Speaker 1: actually survived the French Revolution. The story of Louis Charles 312 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:44,760 Speaker 1: of France is tragic. He was a Prince of Versailles 313 00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,880 Speaker 1: four years old when his older brother died, which made 314 00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:51,680 Speaker 1: him the future Louis the seventeenth of France and heir 315 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,280 Speaker 1: to the French throne. But then when he was still 316 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:59,760 Speaker 1: a young boy, the French Revolution imprisoned his family. His 317 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:04,359 Speaker 1: father was beheaded and his mother was imprisoned, and the 318 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:08,520 Speaker 1: young Louis Charles was brutally tortured with an earshot of 319 00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:12,200 Speaker 1: his mother. He was beaten and also made to drink 320 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,800 Speaker 1: wine until he stumbled to make the guards laugh. He 321 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:18,879 Speaker 1: was told that his parents were traitors and that his 322 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,400 Speaker 1: mom had sexually abused him. And then, of course, his mother, 323 00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,680 Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette, who spent her days pressed against the wall 324 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:29,679 Speaker 1: of her jail cell hoping to catch a glimpse of 325 00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:31,960 Speaker 1: her son as he was brought back and forth from 326 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:37,119 Speaker 1: his abusive lessons, was also beheaded. When Louis Charles was 327 00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,960 Speaker 1: ten years old, he too died of tuberculosis or jail 328 00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:50,280 Speaker 1: fever in jail in the Temple Prison. Obviously, his death, 329 00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:53,360 Speaker 1: the death of the boy that royalists would have at 330 00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:57,600 Speaker 1: the time believed was the then King of France, was 331 00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:02,080 Speaker 1: of massive importance to the revolutionary government, and so a doctor, 332 00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:06,240 Speaker 1: Doctor Pelletan, was brought in to do a full autopsy. 333 00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:09,840 Speaker 1: The body of Louis Charles was thrown into a mass 334 00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:14,080 Speaker 1: grave in the Saint Marguerite Cemetery, but Dr Pelletan was 335 00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:19,200 Speaker 1: still secretly sympathetic to the royal family, especially after seeing 336 00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,560 Speaker 1: all of the physical abuse that young Louis Charles had suffered, 337 00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:28,000 Speaker 1: and so the doctor kept a small souvenir he kept 338 00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,800 Speaker 1: the young Prince's heart snuck into his pocket in a 339 00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:36,080 Speaker 1: handkerchief and then safe in a jar tucked into his 340 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:42,840 Speaker 1: desk drawer. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, more 341 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,159 Speaker 1: than a hundred people would come forward claiming to be 342 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,879 Speaker 1: the lost Prince who had disappeared in jail. After all, 343 00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:53,240 Speaker 1: how did anybody know for sure that he was dead? 344 00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,000 Speaker 1: And being the lost of fault was a valuable claim 345 00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:00,919 Speaker 1: to make, Especially after the French Revolution settled and the 346 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:06,520 Speaker 1: possibility of a Bourbon restoration went from possible to then 347 00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,919 Speaker 1: after Napoleon imminent, the idea of a Bourbon prince impostor 348 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:16,800 Speaker 1: became so ubiquitous that it was a cultural punchline. A 349 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,959 Speaker 1: hobo pretending to be the little boy Dolphin appears in 350 00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:26,480 Speaker 1: Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The real boom in False Dafense 351 00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,760 Speaker 1: came when the child's uncle, the man who became known 352 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:36,360 Speaker 1: as Louis SEV, became king. After Napoleon's fall. There were 353 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,360 Speaker 1: so many impostors that fraudulently claiming to be the King 354 00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,800 Speaker 1: of France was illegal. French authorities didn't really pay that 355 00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:48,199 Speaker 1: much attention to enforcing that law, but there were a 356 00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:52,880 Speaker 1: few really prominent cases with so much support behind them 357 00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,320 Speaker 1: that the French authorities did ultimately take them to trial. 358 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,439 Speaker 1: One such man was known as Charles de Navar, a 359 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:05,040 Speaker 1: traveler from New Orleans with facial scars and missing teeth, 360 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,680 Speaker 1: who wrote letters to the king and the Dauphin's lone 361 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:13,359 Speaker 1: surviving sister. He signed those letters d'aufin with an F. 362 00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,440 Speaker 1: The most famous impostor by far was a man who 363 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:25,119 Speaker 1: went by Carl Wilhelm Nundorff. Nandorff was from Prussia and 364 00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,800 Speaker 1: he claimed to be a clockmaker, but he had been 365 00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:34,040 Speaker 1: locked up in Germany for counterfeiting and he couldn't speak French. Nonetheless, 366 00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:38,760 Speaker 1: he persuaded a former Versailles lady maid and private secretary 367 00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:43,160 Speaker 1: that he actually was the lost Little Prince, although it's 368 00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,840 Speaker 1: also possible, I think that they were in on the 369 00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,640 Speaker 1: scheme and that he was angling for a payout, and 370 00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,479 Speaker 1: the Versailles ladies and maids may have thought that they 371 00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:58,800 Speaker 1: would be rewarded for their loyalty. Nandorff's case went to trial, 372 00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,560 Speaker 1: he was guilty, and he was banished to England, where 373 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:07,320 Speaker 1: he was eventually arrested for trying to build an elaborate explosive. 374 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:12,680 Speaker 1: When he did eventually die in Holland in eighteen forty five. 375 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:19,480 Speaker 1: His gravestone identified him as Louis Charles. His descendants remained 376 00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:23,080 Speaker 1: committed to the Khan the belief that he really was 377 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,000 Speaker 1: the last remaining descendant of the Bourbon monarchy, although in 378 00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:32,080 Speaker 1: scientists ran a DNA test on the lock of Nandorff's 379 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,600 Speaker 1: hair to prove once and for all that he was 380 00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:41,320 Speaker 1: an impostor DNA once again swooping in to ruin the fund. 381 00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,639 Speaker 1: DNA would also give us the real answer of what 382 00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:50,920 Speaker 1: happened to the show called Last Defense. That calcified heart 383 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,119 Speaker 1: that the doctor had taken from the autopsy as a 384 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,840 Speaker 1: souvenir would eventually end up in the royal crypt of 385 00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:04,320 Speaker 1: Sindony alongside the mother and father. In two thousand, geneticists 386 00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,879 Speaker 1: proved that the heart did in fact belong to the 387 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,360 Speaker 1: dead Louis Charles, the ten year old Prince of France 388 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,040 Speaker 1: who died in prison. To me, stories of the Last 389 00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:20,000 Speaker 1: of Fen escaping are similar to rumors that the young 390 00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:24,800 Speaker 1: Anastasia actually survived the murder of the Romanovs in Katerinburg. 391 00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:30,760 Speaker 1: It's a fairy tale, a romantic, hopeful story, and so 392 00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:35,439 Speaker 1: much easier to swallow than the tragedy of young, pointless 393 00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:43,360 Speaker 1: political death. There's one more historical myth that I have 394 00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:48,000 Speaker 1: that isn't quite related to nobility, but one that I 395 00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:52,680 Speaker 1: can't help debunking, and so if you'll bear with me, 396 00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:57,040 Speaker 1: I'm going to debunk it anyway. Do you know those 397 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,760 Speaker 1: medieval torture devices that you can imagine from cartoons, The 398 00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,400 Speaker 1: iron maiden with spikes that would close and go through 399 00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:09,880 Speaker 1: a person's whole body, the rack, the pair of anguish 400 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:16,440 Speaker 1: stretcher that was supposedly inserted and expanded into someone's bodily orifice, 401 00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:23,480 Speaker 1: either a mouth or rear end as punishment for sexual deviancy. Well, 402 00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,880 Speaker 1: all of them are basically made up. They were all 403 00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:32,680 Speaker 1: basically invented in the eighteenth century to scandalize and entertain 404 00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,880 Speaker 1: people in medieval torture museums, and they've more or less 405 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:41,800 Speaker 1: served the same purpose ever since. The idea of medieval 406 00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:47,120 Speaker 1: torture devices just don't hold up to any real academic scrutiny. 407 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,440 Speaker 1: There was an examination of that so called pair of 408 00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,400 Speaker 1: anguish that was on display in a torture museum, and 409 00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,040 Speaker 1: the examination showed that it would have been far too 410 00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,640 Speaker 1: weak to have opened in any bodily orifice, and that 411 00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,800 Speaker 1: it also had a latch that would have prevented that expansion. 412 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:08,960 Speaker 1: The first actual mention of a pair of anguish comes 413 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,480 Speaker 1: not from the Middle Ages, but from the eighteen hundreds. 414 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,160 Speaker 1: One historian suggested that it might have been a device 415 00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:22,520 Speaker 1: to stretch gloves or sucks, and the iron maiden that 416 00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:26,720 Speaker 1: upright coffin with spikes that someone's made to get into 417 00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,280 Speaker 1: and then you know, the door closes and they're impaled. Well, 418 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:35,360 Speaker 1: that was a flat out phony invention. The first mention 419 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:37,800 Speaker 1: of it as a torture device in the Middle Ages 420 00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,760 Speaker 1: came from a writer named Johann Philip sieben Keys. While 421 00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,520 Speaker 1: he was writing a guide book to the city of Nuremberg. 422 00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,320 Speaker 1: He described a criminal dying in an Egyptian mummy case 423 00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,920 Speaker 1: lined with spikes in the year fifteen fifty, but he 424 00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:55,880 Speaker 1: had no actual evidence of that ever happening. It was 425 00:30:55,920 --> 00:31:00,120 Speaker 1: mostly just a creepy, gross story that he wrote as 426 00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:04,200 Speaker 1: he wanted to drum up attention. There's no actual evidence 427 00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,840 Speaker 1: that the so called iron maiden was ever used for 428 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,240 Speaker 1: torture in the Middle Ages, or that it ever existed 429 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:15,920 Speaker 1: before the eighteenth century, but iron maidens began to pop 430 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,600 Speaker 1: up at torture museums across Europe. Not actual historical relics, 431 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:25,080 Speaker 1: mind you, just things fabricated to demonstrate what they say 432 00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,040 Speaker 1: medieval people did. There was even one on display at 433 00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,640 Speaker 1: the World's Fair in Chicago, and you can imagine why 434 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:36,280 Speaker 1: people were so enthralled by it. We're enthralled by it still. 435 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,800 Speaker 1: It's incredibly grizzly. And then there's something like the rack, 436 00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,400 Speaker 1: which would stretch people out to torture them into confession, 437 00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:49,640 Speaker 1: which actually was a documented torture device, but far back 438 00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:53,680 Speaker 1: in ancient times, centuries before the birth of Christ, nowhere 439 00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:59,200 Speaker 1: near the Middle Ages. And yet the morbid popularity of 440 00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:05,640 Speaker 1: medieval torture museums, particularly among Victorian audiences, lead to racks 441 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:10,280 Speaker 1: being displayed as devices from the Middle Ages. Again, none 442 00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,960 Speaker 1: of those devices on display and museums were authentic or 443 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,800 Speaker 1: ever used to torture anyone. Any devices that appeared in 444 00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:23,240 Speaker 1: so called torture museums were entirely fabricated for museum purposes. 445 00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,160 Speaker 1: Torture did exist in the Middle Ages, but it was 446 00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:31,480 Speaker 1: a little less cinematic and a lot less grotesque than 447 00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:35,040 Speaker 1: people might want to believe. The most common form of 448 00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:39,480 Speaker 1: medieval torture was being tied with ropes or restrained in 449 00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:42,800 Speaker 1: a pillory, which is the device that you can imagine 450 00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:47,400 Speaker 1: where someone's head and arms are held through a wooden board. 451 00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,760 Speaker 1: The point of a pillory was to humiliate, not to name. 452 00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,959 Speaker 1: If a woman was sent to the pillory, she traditionally 453 00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,760 Speaker 1: would have been allowed to sit on the stool. But 454 00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:03,480 Speaker 1: people in the Torrian ages like now love the drama 455 00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,960 Speaker 1: of the morbid, of the shocking, of the macabre. I mean, 456 00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:12,520 Speaker 1: I have a podcast called Noble Blood and it's run 457 00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:16,840 Speaker 1: for fifty episodes, and it's not purely Happenstand that I 458 00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:22,080 Speaker 1: tend to gravitate towards stories of death and mystery. On 459 00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,640 Speaker 1: some level, maybe it's satisfying to believe that we're morally 460 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,480 Speaker 1: or ethically superior to our ancestors, That they were neanderthal 461 00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:37,520 Speaker 1: like brutes, racist, sexist, bloodthirsty, and that we because we're 462 00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:42,200 Speaker 1: able to gasp, but their stories aren't. I can tell 463 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,080 Speaker 1: you that, in my nearly two years of writing and 464 00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,960 Speaker 1: researching this podcast, the thing that I've come to realize 465 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,120 Speaker 1: above all else, it's just how similar we are to 466 00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:56,200 Speaker 1: people in the past, how normal they were, how funny 467 00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,240 Speaker 1: they were, they made jokes, they fell in love, they 468 00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:04,680 Speaker 1: got bored, they made mistakes. Rumors are fun and they 469 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,319 Speaker 1: spread for a reason. But there's nothing more compelling to 470 00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,319 Speaker 1: me than digging down to find the truth in the 471 00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:17,440 Speaker 1: real story. Here's to fifty episodes of Noble Blood and 472 00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:22,239 Speaker 1: hopefully the next fifty to come. Thank you so so 473 00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:25,520 Speaker 1: much for your support. I really wouldn't be able to 474 00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:38,920 Speaker 1: do any of this without you. Noble Blood is a 475 00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,640 Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from 476 00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,640 Speaker 1: Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by Dana 477 00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:49,160 Speaker 1: Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, 478 00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,600 Speaker 1: and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at 479 00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,120 Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the 480 00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:58,080 Speaker 1: show over at Noble blood tails dot com. For more 481 00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,680 Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio is at the I heart 482 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:04,000 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 483 00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,440 Speaker 1: favorite shows. M M