Speaker 1: A heart eight loki. In the embers it lay and
Speaker 1: half cooked, found he the woman's heart with child from
Speaker 1: the woman Loki soon was, and thence among men came
Speaker 1: the monsters. All the sea, storm driven, seeks heaven itself
Speaker 1: o'er the earth it flows, The air grows sterile. Then
Speaker 1: follow the snows and the furious winds. For the gods
Speaker 1: are doomed, and the end is death. Then comes another,
Speaker 1: a greater than all. Though never I dare his name
Speaker 1: to speak. Few are they now that farther can see
Speaker 1: than the moment when Othan shall meet the wolf. Welcome
Speaker 1: to stuff to blow your mind production of My Heart radio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome do stuff to blow your mind. If
Speaker 1: my name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. Oh,
Speaker 1: where did that poem come from? Rob Is that one
Speaker 1: of those Icelandic texts? Yeah? This is um from the
Speaker 1: Lay of Hindleam, a Norse poem from the twelfth century
Speaker 1: or perhaps a little later. But in this I know
Speaker 1: that the wording in this translation can maybe be a
Speaker 1: little confusing. Heart is not eating Loki Loki, the you know,
Speaker 1: the Norse trickster god is consuming a heart, and after
Speaker 1: consuming that heart, he becomes with child, and those children
Speaker 1: are the monsters that plague humanity. I think this poem
Speaker 1: is easier to follow if you read it in Yoda voice,
Speaker 1: because it follows Yoda syntax heart loki yeah, you know so.
Speaker 1: In this poem we see just one example of heart
Speaker 1: consumption in Norse mythology. Uh, there are other tales. There
Speaker 1: are tales of men eating the bloody hearts of slain
Speaker 1: dragons to gain their strength and courage. And this is
Speaker 1: a motif we see continued in other European myths as well,
Speaker 1: such as that of the Germanic orrow a Cigarette who
Speaker 1: consumes the heart of the dragon Fafnir after slaying the monster.
Speaker 1: In one telling of that I um this this kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to episodes from last year that will
Speaker 1: be rerunning shortly. In one telling of this victory, he
Speaker 1: has the dragon's heart. Um. He cooks it over the
Speaker 1: fire too, and so he can eat it, And in
Speaker 1: doing so, he burns his hand on those delicious blood
Speaker 1: juices of the heart. And he instinctively licks his hand
Speaker 1: because he's been burned, and the taste of the dragon's
Speaker 1: blood is said to give him the ability to understand
Speaker 1: all languages. Oh, this reminds me of the Salmon of Knowledge?
Speaker 1: Is that that the comparison there? Yeah, that's that's I
Speaker 1: think the exactly the comparison. I don't remember this coming up.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of a lot of those tales
Speaker 1: are interconnected and some of their themes and sometimes the details. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously we are back with part two of our series
Speaker 1: on the removal of hearts, a topic that Rob you
Speaker 1: have brilliantly chosen for the week of valent Hinds Day,
Speaker 1: Because as much as we associate with love, with the
Speaker 1: the giving around and the trading of symbolic heart imagery,
Speaker 1: we we also do you know, love is a is
Speaker 1: a lot about like getting your heart ripped out? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and of course we love this metaphor is especially
Speaker 1: the week of Valentine's Day. Also in the previous episode
Speaker 1: we ended up focusing on some various traditions of heart
Speaker 1: removal in Uh, in ancient Egyptian religion and in um
Speaker 1: as we American context. And today we're going to be
Speaker 1: starting off in accordance with the poem you read, looking
Speaker 1: at some Norse traditions. That's right, uh, And I found
Speaker 1: a really great book that I used in putting this
Speaker 1: section together. It's called A History of the Heart by O. M.
Speaker 1: Hoistad of Telemark University College in Norway. The author here
Speaker 1: is of Norse descent and frequently mentions that in the book. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the book itself doesn't just deal with Norse traditions
Speaker 1: of the heart. He also touches on some of the
Speaker 1: examples we disc us in the last episode. But uh,
Speaker 1: he spends a lot of time discussing the Norse idea
Speaker 1: all of the heart and what what they thought the
Speaker 1: heart did, and kind of like the way that these
Speaker 1: ideas affected expectations of physiology. So it as Hoisted discusses
Speaker 1: the Norse saw the heart as the seat of courage,
Speaker 1: which you know that that squares with a lot of
Speaker 1: other traditions as well, and a lot of the way
Speaker 1: we way as we talk about the heart metaphorically today,
Speaker 1: but it was also seen as the seat of the mind. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously we get into into Norse culture and there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot in Norse culture beyond the warrior ethos and
Speaker 1: warrior culture. But Hoisted is pretty quick in this book
Speaker 1: to say like there was there was a certain ruthless
Speaker 1: edge to Norse culture as well, and we see that
Speaker 1: in the way they treated the heart and what Once more,
Speaker 1: in reading this, I was reminded again if that C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis quote that we discussed in the previous episode about
Speaker 1: the unloving heart, how it becomes this dark, sing and
Speaker 1: an encased thing that is that is cold and in unflappable,
Speaker 1: but also you know, it's it cuts you off from
Speaker 1: from any like legitimate feeling and connection. Uh. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: point in that quote being that love is by nature
Speaker 1: becoming vulnerable, and you can defend yourself against becoming vulnerable,
Speaker 1: but that has its own consequences, right the nor I
Speaker 1: don't know how the Norse of old would have have
Speaker 1: taken that that quote. They would have been like, yeah,
Speaker 1: perhaps steel it, steal that hard off, let it grow
Speaker 1: nice and cold because some because that basically is one
Speaker 1: of the attributes of the ideal Norse warrior heart. His
Speaker 1: voice stud discusses in the book. In some accounts, it
Speaker 1: even seems to have to go beyond the merely metaphorical,
Speaker 1: and it seems to be seen as a biological reality,
Speaker 1: either the physiological result of bravery or its cause. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about a heart that is shriveled, that is cold,
Speaker 1: that is uh, that that doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: blood in it, and it doesn't quiver. So in the
Speaker 1: fullest broader saga, this is the saga of the foster Brothers,
Speaker 1: or the saga of the Sworn Brothers. This is a
Speaker 1: tale of the eleventh century uh, surviving in a trio
Speaker 1: of I think each one is incomplete thirteenth century manuscripts
Speaker 1: um and it's in this particular tale it said that
Speaker 1: following the death of a brave warrior named Torre gear Uh,
Speaker 1: they take the war, they lay him out. He's like
Speaker 1: laid out on a stone or a table or something,
Speaker 1: and they open up his chest so that it could
Speaker 1: be seen what a brave man's heart truly looks like,
Speaker 1: because they were curious. Is it is it like they say,
Speaker 1: is a brave, courageous man's heart? Is its small? Is
Speaker 1: it cold? Is it shriveled? Is it like the heart
Speaker 1: of the grinch before it grows three sizes? Is it
Speaker 1: in fact free of the blood that would cause it
Speaker 1: to to quiver and uh and then make one a coward? Um?
Speaker 1: Or is it indeed you have the small, firm, cold
Speaker 1: heart of a warrior. And in this account, supposedly this
Speaker 1: is exactly what they find. They kind of open then
Speaker 1: they say, yes, it's all true, like look at this heart.
Speaker 1: Behold this shriveled cold heart of a warrior. And uh
Speaker 1: so Hoist discusses this a betty. He references some other
Speaker 1: um accounts. There's the U one of the Norse warrior
Speaker 1: heart from the hell Gay saga. Uh this a quick
Speaker 1: quote from that quote. Fearless was he bold for battle?
Speaker 1: Bone hard, his heart within his breast. Now he stresses,
Speaker 1: in this case this is more of a metaphor than
Speaker 1: anatomical commentary. But he cites the work of a Norse
Speaker 1: historian named Claus Fonsi on the idea that courage and
Speaker 1: cowardice can still be thought of in Norse thought to
Speaker 1: stem from quote purely anatomical relations. So to quote of
Speaker 1: a SI on this quote. The important thing for the
Speaker 1: present argument is that the metaphors mentioned refer to the
Speaker 1: anatomical composition of the heart, and that they see in
Speaker 1: its smallness, hardness, and absence of blood a cause of
Speaker 1: courage and not only a symptom of it. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it is because your interior organs have certain properties that uh,
Speaker 1: that certain behaviors emerging you. And so for a warrior
Speaker 1: who's very courageous and uh and very strong in battle,
Speaker 1: it just happens to be because their heart is this
Speaker 1: I see little nugget. Yeah. Oh and speaking of of
Speaker 1: via I c nuggets. Uh. He also points to the
Speaker 1: giant Rugney in Norse mythology, who is said to be
Speaker 1: the strongest of all the giants because he has a
Speaker 1: heart of literal stone. That, yeah, that'll do it. And
Speaker 1: he also gets into this account of Rugney going up
Speaker 1: against Thor and and and so Rugney is really strong,
Speaker 1: but he knows that Thor also has a really tough
Speaker 1: heart and has these you know, a magical um you know,
Speaker 1: God given um hammer and so forth and some other
Speaker 1: magical items. They didn't want to go up into a
Speaker 1: direct battle against them, so they're like, build a giant
Speaker 1: and that then they have to give it a heart,
Speaker 1: but no, no hearts are available, So they put a
Speaker 1: mayor's heart in there, and it doesn't work, like it
Speaker 1: just throws off the whole construct, but they're there and
Speaker 1: then sorry, it's like you get the wrong voltage battery. Yeah. Basically, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that's in that we get back.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about some of the the interpretations
Speaker 1: of the heart and its role in the body and
Speaker 1: the person that are more magical and and maybe to
Speaker 1: modern eyes and scientific understanding, a little backwards. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, they do realize that there is something
Speaker 1: about the heart that that powers everything. It is the
Speaker 1: center of the being, even if contrary to uh, this
Speaker 1: one leg of Norse's thought, it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with with one's mind exactly. And as we talked about
Speaker 1: in the last episode, it is scientifically true that feedback
Speaker 1: from organs other than the brain contributes to the way
Speaker 1: the brain works. So uh, I think the way we
Speaker 1: put it last time is that you know, the brain
Speaker 1: is the necessary organ for cognition. You couldn't think without it.
Speaker 1: But also it doesn't think in a vacuum. It's influenced
Speaker 1: by organs throughout the body. So the digestive sys them
Speaker 1: has influence on how the brain works, how you feel,
Speaker 1: how you think, and the cardiovascular system does as well,
Speaker 1: your heart and your lungs and all that. So I
Speaker 1: think there is for example, I mean, I think courage
Speaker 1: and cowardice would be a great example because that would
Speaker 1: involve the the fight or flight response, which of course
Speaker 1: is based in the nervous system, but then involves feedback
Speaker 1: loops from organs throughout the body. And it does indeed
Speaker 1: include UH regulation of the circulatory and UH and respiration systems.
Speaker 1: So in a way, you are sort of getting feedback
Speaker 1: from the heart when you're feeling fear. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and uh and and I think we've discussed this before,
Speaker 1: but I think it would be a mistake too to
Speaker 1: think that the Norse had like a simplistic understanding of, say, um,
Speaker 1: that the human inner experience, because you also look at
Speaker 1: things like the idea that of of Odin's crows. Um,
Speaker 1: what were their names, Hoogan and moon In. I think, um,
Speaker 1: I'm probably mispronouncing them. But um, we discussed this in
Speaker 1: the past, how each one has a different connotation dealing
Speaker 1: with like the mind and memory as about it. Thank
Speaker 1: thank So We're gonna move on from most of the
Speaker 1: North examples here, but we are going to get into
Speaker 1: another European example of heart removal, one that I wasn't
Speaker 1: familiar with until basically researching these episodes. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about heart burial or the Treatment of
Speaker 1: the Heart in Medieval and post Medieval Christian Europe. Now
Speaker 1: a major source I was consulting on this was a
Speaker 1: chapter in a collection of archaeology essays. The book that
Speaker 1: it's from is called Body Parts and Bodies Whole. That
Speaker 1: was from Oxbo Books, that's an Oxford Press UH in
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten and the editors were Katerina Rebe Salisbury,
Speaker 1: Marie Louise Stig Sorensen and Jessica Hughes and UH. The
Speaker 1: specific chapter in quest and is called Heart Burial and
Speaker 1: Medieval and early post Medieval Central Europe by A Stella
Speaker 1: Weiss Crecy, and I looked at up. She's a scholar
Speaker 1: affiliated with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Austrian
Speaker 1: Archaeological Institute. So between the introduction of Christianity in Europe
Speaker 1: and roughly the nineteenth century, the usually near universal ideal
Speaker 1: for burial practices in Europe in Christian Europe was straightforward
Speaker 1: burial of the body whole with flesh intact. And their
Speaker 1: exceptions to this we're going to talk about, but that
Speaker 1: was basically the norm. And this could be connected in
Speaker 1: part to Christian beliefs about the afterlife, because strangely today,
Speaker 1: I think if you ask most Christians what they believe
Speaker 1: happens after death, they will say that their immaterial soul
Speaker 1: separates from the body and goes off to live in
Speaker 1: Heaven with God for eternity. And under this way of thinking,
Speaker 1: the body is not important. It's just it's just sort
Speaker 1: of the matter that the soul uses to live through,
Speaker 1: and the afterlife will not have a material basis. But
Speaker 1: this is not what the earliest Christians by and large believed,
Speaker 1: and this is not what's described in the earliest Christian texts.
Speaker 1: They instead speak of what theologians uh often call a
Speaker 1: general resurrection, that at the the end of the age,
Speaker 1: all of the dead, the righteous and the unrighteous will
Speaker 1: be resurrected in bodily form to face judgment. Though confusingly,
Speaker 1: the apostle Paul writes that it will be a kind
Speaker 1: of changed bodily form, because the present earthly flesh and
Speaker 1: bones that we have now are perishable, and so they
Speaker 1: can't inherit the kingdom. And yet we will be raised
Speaker 1: in bodily forms. So when our bodies are raised from
Speaker 1: the dead, we will be given new spiritual flesh, which
Speaker 1: is imperishable, synthetic flesh. You could look at it that way,
Speaker 1: but anyway, so, it was commonly understood by the dama
Speaker 1: at schools of early Christian theologians that the afterlife for
Speaker 1: believers would consist of some form of bodily resurrection, even
Speaker 1: if the body is changed somehow, thus giving rise to
Speaker 1: a desire for funeral practices that would keep the body
Speaker 1: relatively intact. And I think, knowing that I would never
Speaker 1: have conceived that that heart removal would be in the
Speaker 1: cards at all. Well, I think various procedures that in
Speaker 1: some way violate the wholeness or integrity of the body
Speaker 1: were controversial with certain people at certain times. Uh. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I want to say this whole thing
Speaker 1: about like the body. This leads to a great digression
Speaker 1: on the implications for cannibalism in early Christian thought, because like, okay,
Speaker 1: what if you are saved, but then you are killed
Speaker 1: and eaten by a cannibal and your body becomes part
Speaker 1: of the body of the cannibal. What will happen at
Speaker 1: the resurrection? Or what if two cannibals eat a Christian
Speaker 1: and then together the who cannibals have a baby? The
Speaker 1: baby will be made of parts of the Christian that
Speaker 1: the parents ate, So how will God retrieve the bits
Speaker 1: of the Christian from the baby's body and so forth?
Speaker 1: Like Thomas Aquinas participated in discussions about topics of this
Speaker 1: sort and it's a hoot. But anyway, one interesting area
Speaker 1: we see the theological implications of Europe shifting from mostly
Speaker 1: pagan to mostly Christian is in attitudes toward funeral practices,
Speaker 1: specifically towards cremation. Um because apart from the literal implications
Speaker 1: for the possibility of future resurrection, and there were different
Speaker 1: ideas about this. You know, some Christian theologians did not
Speaker 1: place as much importance on the integrity of the body. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, some just didn't think it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: I think Augustine didn't think it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: But anyway, uh, cremation was not only a way of
Speaker 1: destroying the body, including in a way destroying the bones,
Speaker 1: but also just sort of it was it was culturally
Speaker 1: a soociated with paganism. It was something that the pagans did,
Speaker 1: and thus it was viewed as alien and unholy by
Speaker 1: Christian rulers. So for example, in the seven eighties, and
Speaker 1: I've seen two different years given for the seven five
Speaker 1: and seven eighty nine. I'm not sure why the difference
Speaker 1: or which one is correct, but sometimes in the seven eighties,
Speaker 1: the Christian king Charlemagne, who eventually style himself as the
Speaker 1: Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, band of the practice
Speaker 1: of cremation of the dead as as practiced by the Saxons.
Speaker 1: And I was looking for a quote of this edict.
Speaker 1: I found it quoted in something called European Paganism The
Speaker 1: Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages by
Speaker 1: Ken Dowden Poli and this quotes it in translation as follows.
Speaker 1: If anyone causes the body of a dead man to
Speaker 1: be consumed by flame according to the right of the Pagans,
Speaker 1: and shall reduce its bones to ashes, he shall suffer
Speaker 1: capital punishment. So that's harsh. Cre cremating a friend or
Speaker 1: family member's body is punishable by death. So you get
Speaker 1: the idea of how strongly intact burial was was linked
Speaker 1: to cultural and religious orthodoxy in much of Christian Europe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the point that it needs to be enforced, apparently
Speaker 1: with the death penalty. Um, yeah, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: drawing just this this firm line that needs to be
Speaker 1: enforced uh in the view of the time between us
Speaker 1: and them. But to come back to White preaches article,
Speaker 1: despite intact burial being the norm, there were countercurrents of
Speaker 1: thinking and practice, both for cultural and theological reasons. Like again,
Speaker 1: there were some people who didn't think the intactedness of
Speaker 1: the body was as important as others did, and for
Speaker 1: purely practical reasons. For example, practical reasons would include space
Speaker 1: real estate. There was the common practice of removal of
Speaker 1: bones from a aerial place to be to be taken
Speaker 1: away to a charnel house because you know, there's just
Speaker 1: not enough space for all the bodies in the cemetery. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And this is I mean, this is something you see
Speaker 1: in cultures around the world where there might be some
Speaker 1: sort of uh predominant idea about how the dead should
Speaker 1: be buried. But you're gonna then come up against basic
Speaker 1: environmental constraints on that practice as well as size constraints
Speaker 1: based on various factors. Exactly. And I've got another practical
Speaker 1: time and place, time, place and manner uh constraint on
Speaker 1: what can be done with a body, and that would
Speaker 1: be processing the body in some way to delay putrefaction. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was to to preserve the corpse for some reason,
Speaker 1: often either for public display or for transport across a
Speaker 1: long distance. And some of these forms of processing, Okay,
Speaker 1: you can imagine some types of just like embalming to
Speaker 1: make the corpse last as long as possible. But sometimes
Speaker 1: this was a little more involved than that and could
Speaker 1: be thought to violate the the integrity of the body
Speaker 1: as a whole. Sometimes it involved removing things or even
Speaker 1: more extreme forms of processing, and these practices get weirder
Speaker 1: than you might imagine. So some of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here is just disembowelment, removal of the internal organs
Speaker 1: from the abdominal cavity. Wise, Creachy says that this this
Speaker 1: became common in the Frankish Empire in the eighth and
Speaker 1: ninth centuries. So you take the guts out, or take
Speaker 1: all the internal organs out, that might have some kind
Speaker 1: of implication for preserving the rest of the body, uh
Speaker 1: for for a certain period of time to do something with.
Speaker 1: But in the twelfth century we see the rise of
Speaker 1: a practice called most teutonicus, which translates to the German custom.
Speaker 1: What is this custom of the Germans? It was boiling
Speaker 1: the honored dead. Sometimes a here's an example of how
Speaker 1: it would be used. Sometimes a high ranking warrior or
Speaker 1: commander would die on a campaign in southern Europe or
Speaker 1: in the Holy Land, far away from home. How are
Speaker 1: his retainers going to get the cadaver back to the
Speaker 1: crypt at the family estate. The German speaking crusaders often
Speaker 1: did not want to be buried away from home, you know,
Speaker 1: in the place where they were crusading. They wanted to
Speaker 1: be buried back at home. The body would obviously rot
Speaker 1: if it were transported intact or you know, by card
Speaker 1: or even by ship, trying to take it all the
Speaker 1: way back to Germany or Austria, wherever the warrior came from.
Speaker 1: So people came up with the solution of making that
Speaker 1: warrior into a bone broth. Uh, you would have crusader stock.
Speaker 1: So imagine Conrad here dies in battle trying to sack
Speaker 1: a Muslim city in Syria, and his servants or his
Speaker 1: kinsman get his body and they boil it until the
Speaker 1: You can be boiled in water or in like vinegar
Speaker 1: or wine, or I think sometimes in milk, but in
Speaker 1: some kind of liquid. You boil it until the flesh
Speaker 1: starts to separate from the bones, and then somehow you
Speaker 1: get the bones clean. I guess you if you boil
Speaker 1: it long enough, just basically everything will float off. Or
Speaker 1: you could boil it for a period and then it
Speaker 1: might require some additional scraping with sharp instruments, but you
Speaker 1: would boil first to get the meat off, and then
Speaker 1: you'd have clean, hygienic bones that could be taken back
Speaker 1: to the estate in in Europe for deposition. Yeah. To
Speaker 1: your point about the stock, we're really close to just
Speaker 1: to butchering here this. Yeah, And sometimes I've read that
Speaker 1: this was not in this book chapter I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that sometimes the organs from this were
Speaker 1: discarded and other times the organs in the flesh were
Speaker 1: preserved like you might preserve a meat, like by salting them, uh,
Speaker 1: so that they could be transported somewhere, maybe to be
Speaker 1: buried separately. Wow, you know, this seems like a whole
Speaker 1: area of that is that is overdue for exploration and
Speaker 1: some sort of undead um you know, templar fick shit
Speaker 1: or something. You know. Um, you could have the skeletal
Speaker 1: reanimated remains of this crusader. And what does he want,
Speaker 1: while he wants his salted organs back, give me my
Speaker 1: body back in sausage forms his sausage now, uh, and
Speaker 1: how fitting for a German speaking medieval noble to become
Speaker 1: a sausage in death. But anyway, so most teutonic Us,
Speaker 1: by I guess its advocates, was thought to avoid violating
Speaker 1: the prohibition against cremation, as specifically Charlemagne's prohibition. Uh, because
Speaker 1: of course it did not involve destruction of the bones.
Speaker 1: You would not be reducing the bones to ashes. The
Speaker 1: bones would be intact. So I think that's good enough.
Speaker 1: You know, the body is intact enough to to be
Speaker 1: considered okay and not pagan. But some church officials still
Speaker 1: didn't like it, and it was ultimately forbidden as uh
Speaker 1: disgusting and unfitting of of proper disposal of the dead
Speaker 1: by the pope in twelve and their teen hundreds. So
Speaker 1: this would have been Pope I was wondering how to
Speaker 1: say this, Boniface, Boniface, I guess Boniface eight. I was
Speaker 1: looking for a translation of the original text of this
Speaker 1: edict as well, and so what I came across was
Speaker 1: part of a papal bull from hundred called bulld de
Speaker 1: Semple Tourists, which was quoted in a paper called The
Speaker 1: Popes and the History of Anatomy by James J. Walsh,
Speaker 1: published in nineteen o four in the Medical Library and
Speaker 1: Historical Journal, and the translation of the paper Bull says,
Speaker 1: persons cutting up the bodies of the dead barbarously cooking
Speaker 1: them in order that the bones, being separated from the
Speaker 1: flesh may be carried for burial into their own countries,
Speaker 1: are by the very fact excommunicated. So I think that
Speaker 1: means no no further discussion necessary if you do it
Speaker 1: automatic excommunication. And you know this does this sounds like
Speaker 1: a very top down edict right here, and obviously it
Speaker 1: is coming from the pope. But you can imagine this
Speaker 1: scenario where out in the field, out in the where
Speaker 1: you're actually having to deal with the challenge of bringing
Speaker 1: bodies back across vast distances. You you might this might
Speaker 1: be a lot clearer a situation like this body is
Speaker 1: going to rot, is going to be foul by the
Speaker 1: time you get it back. It is going to be
Speaker 1: a mess. Why don't we just do the messy part here, uh,
Speaker 1: and and speed it up a bit and then bring
Speaker 1: the bones back clean. Yes, So you can see the
Speaker 1: obvious practical advantages to this method, even though I mean,
Speaker 1: we are highlighting how it does seem extremely weird, and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie it does, but like they're there,
Speaker 1: are there. The advantages are clear in terms of like
Speaker 1: hygiene and so forth. The boiling and milk especially gives
Speaker 1: me pause. That's the one that really sticks with me
Speaker 1: for some reason, because I'm like, boiling and wine, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that just makes sense, But milk, I don't know. Walsh
Speaker 1: writes of more examples of famous rulers who underwent most Teutonicus.
Speaker 1: He says, quote the body of Frederick Barbarossa. I think
Speaker 1: that's Frederick the First, the Holy Roman emperor, who was
Speaker 1: drowned in the river cell Left near Jerusalem, was one
Speaker 1: of the first to be treated thus. Afterwards, the remains
Speaker 1: of Louis the ninth of France and a number of
Speaker 1: his relatives who perished on the ill fated crusade in
Speaker 1: Egypt were brought back to France in this fashion. And
Speaker 1: though this is a side issue, I did just want
Speaker 1: to quickly make note of it, because the main point
Speaker 1: of this paper by Walsh is to refute and apparently
Speaker 1: long propagated claim that this papal bull from hundred from
Speaker 1: Boniface eight uh forbade uh dissection for the purpose of
Speaker 1: anatomical research, so a lot of like early histories of
Speaker 1: science at oh, we could have learned so much through
Speaker 1: anatomical dissection if not for this papal bull. Walsh argues
Speaker 1: that it was actually neither intended to have this purpose
Speaker 1: nor understood as such, and it was a splicitly about
Speaker 1: boiling crusaders to bring their bones home from foreign lands.
Speaker 1: M and you know what. Coming back to that uh
Speaker 1: that chapter by wis Crechi, she says that despite the
Speaker 1: prohibition in the bull, evisceration and excarnation by boiling continued
Speaker 1: some people, I guess, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they didn't know about it, or maybe they just
Speaker 1: ignored the pope. I'm not sure, um though, she says
Speaker 1: de fleshing by boiling eventually faded away mostly by the
Speaker 1: by the middle of the fifteenth century. However, a related
Speaker 1: but different practice is the focus of this chapter, and
Speaker 1: that is heart burial, or the separation of the heart
Speaker 1: from the body after death for burial usually in a
Speaker 1: different place. Now in some cases, various types of evisceration,
Speaker 1: including removal and separate treatment of the heart as well
Speaker 1: as other internal organs, may have been practical in the
Speaker 1: same sense as the boiling of a crusader's bone. It was,
Speaker 1: in some cases a practical solution to deal with the
Speaker 1: tricky situation of a death far away from home and
Speaker 1: the inevitable onset of decay in an era without freezers
Speaker 1: or modern embalming techniques. So I was looking for one
Speaker 1: big example of this, and I came across what I
Speaker 1: thought was a great one, the story of King Henry
Speaker 1: the First of England, which is interesting in a number
Speaker 1: of ways. My main source on this is some materials
Speaker 1: from the Reading Museum in the uk UH and the
Speaker 1: reason for the location at the Reading Museum will become apparent.
Speaker 1: Minute but tiny bit of background. Henry the First also
Speaker 1: known as Henry bow Clerk, which means good scholar. He
Speaker 1: was a very ambitious guy. He was kind of a
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones character. He was the fourth son of
Speaker 1: William the Conqueror, originally without a domain rulership of his
Speaker 1: own because he's the fourth son. But Henry became king
Speaker 1: of England after his eldest brother, William the second died
Speaker 1: in eleven hundred, and then Henry made some moves. He
Speaker 1: leap frogged over his older his other older brother Robert,
Speaker 1: to claim the English throne. And then he went out
Speaker 1: and seized control of the Duchy of Normandy in northern
Speaker 1: France from that same brother Robert in eleven oh six. Wow,
Speaker 1: he's making moves, making moves. I think he kept Robert
Speaker 1: in prison for the rest of his life or something.
Speaker 1: It was not not that nice on on that issue.
Speaker 1: But but but one thing you may have read about Henry,
Speaker 1: the first notable for it's like brutal pithiness, is the
Speaker 1: note about the cause of his death. And the note
Speaker 1: is that he died in eleven thirty five at a
Speaker 1: hunting lodge in Leone la Fora in Normandy as a
Speaker 1: result of eating quote, a surfeit of Lamprey's. It's just
Speaker 1: like that. It's like four perfect words. I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: but I think there's an episode of Horrible Histories that
Speaker 1: touches on this. Uh Okay, I should look that up. Well,
Speaker 1: this that that may cover some of the same stuff
Speaker 1: I'm about to mention. By the way, Lampreys if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar, there to a type of I don't know,
Speaker 1: kind of wormy looking jawless fish, superficially resembling eels. I
Speaker 1: think biologically they're not eels, but they're sometimes called eels.
Speaker 1: I think this death has been interpreted as maybe food poisoning,
Speaker 1: but it's not known for sure, as somehow it is
Speaker 1: insistently a hilarious idea to me, This conqueror king dies
Speaker 1: from just like eating eating Lamprey's until he died, but
Speaker 1: from the from the Anglo Saxon Chronicles. This is quoted
Speaker 1: on the website of the Museum of Reading. Quote that
Speaker 1: very year the king died in Normandy the next day
Speaker 1: after the Feast of St. Andrew. Then this land immediately
Speaker 1: grew dark because every man who could immediately robbed another.
Speaker 1: Then his son and his friends took and brought his
Speaker 1: body to England and buried it at Reading. I like
Speaker 1: that note to everybody immediately committing cry times. I don't
Speaker 1: buy it, but who knows. Okay, so, but they want
Speaker 1: to bring his body back to Reading. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: but it's not quite as simple as that. Henry had
Speaker 1: given instructions uh to take his body to Reading. He
Speaker 1: did want his body to be laid to rest within
Speaker 1: the abbey at Reading, where he had personally founded a
Speaker 1: sizeable monastery, but that was all the way over across
Speaker 1: the English Channel. Reading is a town a bit to
Speaker 1: the west of London, so it's inland as well. It's
Speaker 1: not like right on the coast, And apparently at the
Speaker 1: time of his death weather was bad. There was a
Speaker 1: winter winter gale blowing, making travel across the channel a
Speaker 1: treacherous proposition, and according to our chronicles, Henry started rotting
Speaker 1: and smelling bad very quickly. So instead of trying to
Speaker 1: take him to Reading as is, a different plan was followed.
Speaker 1: Henry's body was taken to the cathedral at Ruan, which
Speaker 1: was nearby Normandy, where it was embalmed in the following manner.
Speaker 1: He was vivisected and his heart and intestines were removed
Speaker 1: and buried separately at a priory in France. So here's
Speaker 1: a case of heart removal and burial, but along with
Speaker 1: the intestines at a different place than the rest of
Speaker 1: the body. His brain and his eyes were also removed.
Speaker 1: Not sure what happened to them, Uh, just somebody might
Speaker 1: be I'm not sure. The rest of his flesh was
Speaker 1: I think slashed open and rubbed with salt inside out
Speaker 1: as a preservative, and he was smeared with a kind
Speaker 1: of perfume. Finally, the body was wrapped in an ox
Speaker 1: hide that was sown shut uh and that part the
Speaker 1: rest of that body, the salted body inside the ox side,
Speaker 1: was taken back to the abbey at Reading for burial.
Speaker 1: But despite these precautions, Henry's retainers noticed during the journey
Speaker 1: back to England that the ox hides were leaking quote
Speaker 1: black fluid all over the place. It is gross. Oh. Also,
Speaker 1: despite the obvious caveats to be skeptical of accounts like this,
Speaker 1: the chroniclers at least tell us that the embalmer whose
Speaker 1: job it was to remove Henry's brain, was so overpowered
Speaker 1: by the stench that he died. Well that that that
Speaker 1: makes sense, because that that lines up with stuff we
Speaker 1: discuss in the past regarding Egyptian mummification, where one of
Speaker 1: the factors we have to take into account regarding the
Speaker 1: removal and disposal of the brain is that that would
Speaker 1: have gone rancid really quickly and would would not have
Speaker 1: been a pleasant material to have to deal with. Well,
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder, like, what can you actually die
Speaker 1: from a stinch? Obviously you can die from inhaling things
Speaker 1: that are harmful to your body, but like, could something
Speaker 1: actually smell so bad that in some way the smell
Speaker 1: is what kills you. That didn't really seem to make sense.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Mm hmm, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There would be an interesting topic to discuss in the future.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are certain things you can smell that
Speaker 1: will kill you, but it's not the merely the stinch
Speaker 1: of the thing that makes it lethal. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: it's an open question. Okay, yeah, maybe we'll come back
Speaker 1: to that one day anyway. So here we have a
Speaker 1: case in Henry the First where there may have also
Speaker 1: been symbolic considerations involved, but there were clearly practical reasons
Speaker 1: for burying the heart and other organs separately from the
Speaker 1: rest of the body. And to come back to uh
Speaker 1: this uh, this article or this book chapter I was
Speaker 1: talking about, whatever the reasons involved the The author here
Speaker 1: writes that this type of practice was fairly common for
Speaker 1: the upper classes in Western Europe starting at around the
Speaker 1: time of Henry's reign. Quote the extraction of the inner Organs,
Speaker 1: and the separate burial of the heart and intestines was
Speaker 1: a hallmark of English and French aristocratic mortuary behavior from
Speaker 1: the twelfth century onwards. It is worth noting that the
Speaker 1: English often quickly discarded the viscera close to the side
Speaker 1: of corpse treatment, whereas the French treated them with great respect.
Speaker 1: The English aristocracy generally favored a double interment, one for
Speaker 1: the body, the other for the heart, while French aristocracy
Speaker 1: often requested that the corpses be buried in three separate
Speaker 1: places body, heart, and entrails. Now to end that quote,
Speaker 1: but summarize some other commons. A big focus of this
Speaker 1: chapter is about the practice of heart burial in Central
Speaker 1: Europe is like in mostly German speaking areas of Europe,
Speaker 1: where it was much less common than it was in
Speaker 1: France and England, though there were some examples there. There's
Speaker 1: one specific exception, which is that it was a standing
Speaker 1: tradition of the prince bishops of Wurtzburg. Wurtzburg is a
Speaker 1: city in the German state of Bavaria uh and these
Speaker 1: prince bishops established a tradition with a three part burial.
Speaker 1: The corpse would go off to Wurtzburg Cathedral, the intestines
Speaker 1: go to the castle church at of Marienburg, and the
Speaker 1: heart goes off to the monastery of Abroc And in
Speaker 1: these cases it would have been probably for or not
Speaker 1: probably almost certainly for mainly symbolic reasons rather than practical ones.
Speaker 1: And what were these symbolic reasons? While she writes in
Speaker 1: her conclusion that the primary symbolic purpose of the division
Speaker 1: of the corps in both Central and Western Europe in
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages was a desire to quote duplicate the
Speaker 1: body quote by physically fragmenting corpses, high ranking individuals could
Speaker 1: express loyalty to more than one site and comply with
Speaker 1: a range of political, religious, and social demands. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: makes sense. This is kind of like spreading it around.
Speaker 1: It's like it's almost like a royal, say, a royal
Speaker 1: official that has three parties on the same night, They're
Speaker 1: gonna try to attend each of them for a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: make an appearance at all three Yeah, yeah, And so
Speaker 1: this is a similar thing, except when ones remains right.
Speaker 1: So at this time, the choice of where to be
Speaker 1: buried was often interpreted as an important sign of what
Speaker 1: was important to you. So if you're a duke and
Speaker 1: you want to show your loyalty to your duchy, but
Speaker 1: maybe you're also a member of a consecrated religious order
Speaker 1: and you want to show your loyalty to that orders
Speaker 1: founding abbey, what can you do? Or maybe you're a
Speaker 1: duke and you want to be in part at your duchy,
Speaker 1: but also you are on some brutal military campaign and
Speaker 1: you want to be buried in part uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in the Holy Land where you're conquering cities. Is so
Speaker 1: what do you do? You duplicate your body, allowing it
Speaker 1: to be buried in both places. And one common way
Speaker 1: of doing that, especially in Western Europe, mainly England and France,
Speaker 1: was burying the body in one and the heart in
Speaker 1: the other. Uh. And a very common example here is
Speaker 1: English nobles having their hearts transported separately to or from
Speaker 1: the Holy Land. But the author also writes that in
Speaker 1: the post medieval period, such as seventeenth century Catholic Europe,
Speaker 1: the symbolic significance of separate heart burial becomes more complicated. Quote.
Speaker 1: The heart turns into something more than just a representative
Speaker 1: of a person. It becomes a political artifact which was
Speaker 1: used to renew spirituality and promote new types of religious beliefs.
Speaker 1: So a heart in this case, Uh, the way I'm
Speaker 1: understanding this is that it could be used more kind
Speaker 1: of like the relics of saints, or like a religious
Speaker 1: icon that was dedicated to maybe some kind of Catholic
Speaker 1: counter reformation movement. That would you know, people could look
Speaker 1: on it and meditate on it and it would or
Speaker 1: not the heart itself maybe, but you know, like a
Speaker 1: marker of its deposition somewhere and that would inspire them
Speaker 1: to feel certain religious feelings. Fascinating. Another interesting trend observed
Speaker 1: in this paper that she mentioned in the conclusion, especially
Speaker 1: in England, it seems like heart burial takes on a
Speaker 1: kind of fashionable nous, like it's kind of cool, and
Speaker 1: like so many things that are perceived as cool over
Speaker 1: the years, this had to do in part with being
Speaker 1: a practice of the rich. And it goes like this,
Speaker 1: transportation of a corpse is a marker of what she
Speaker 1: calls social distinction, So you know, whose corpse gets transported
Speaker 1: around after death, usually a powerful and wealthy person. Quote
Speaker 1: procedures associated with transportation and delayed burial, such as a
Speaker 1: visceration and separate burial of the inner organs eventually developed
Speaker 1: into symbols of high status even when transport was not necessary.
Speaker 1: So maybe if earlier transportation of different parts of the
Speaker 1: body around was a sign of like, wow, you're rich
Speaker 1: enough to go like lead people to to fight in
Speaker 1: the crusades, uh, and it was just a practical necessity there.
Speaker 1: Maybe later on it doesn't have any of those practical implications,
Speaker 1: but it's just like, well, that's what rich, important, powerful
Speaker 1: people used to do, so maybe we should do that. Also,
Speaker 1: division of the corps was more expensive than a regular burial,
Speaker 1: So if you are say rising up through the classes,
Speaker 1: like if you were somebody who was formerly more of
Speaker 1: a commoner but you've got appointed to a to like
Speaker 1: an administrative position somewhere within the government, you could try
Speaker 1: to signal your yours in class status with some kind
Speaker 1: of different funeral practice, maybe division of your body and
Speaker 1: deposition at different places. So it becomes a form of
Speaker 1: conspicuous consumption, a way to show off the fact that
Speaker 1: you have money to create the appearance of higher social
Speaker 1: class or prestige. M Yeah, like I can afford to
Speaker 1: not only have one funeral but three funeral. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: here's an interesting question, why did division of the corps,
Speaker 1: including heart burial spread more quickly in medieval England but
Speaker 1: remain comparatively rare in Central Europe. She suggests here that
Speaker 1: it's because in England it was practiced by men, women
Speaker 1: and children, whereas in medieval Central Europe basically meaning like
Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Empire area, it was mainly done to
Speaker 1: unmarried men without legitimate offspring. So obviously that would make
Speaker 1: a big difference. Another big difference here comes back to
Speaker 1: what we were talking about in the past episode about
Speaker 1: the symbolism of the heart. There appeared to be differences
Speaker 1: in the understanding of the unique symbolism in the heart
Speaker 1: in Western versus Central Europe. So example, here, uh, there
Speaker 1: was a twelfth century Austrian figure named had Mar of
Speaker 1: kun Ring, who, according to the author, is the only
Speaker 1: known German speaker ever to ask for his heart to
Speaker 1: be transported back home from a crusade. Because remember, among
Speaker 1: German speakers, what what's the solution there? The German speakers
Speaker 1: like the most Teutonic as the German custom making the
Speaker 1: bone broth out of the crusader. Yeah, bring back the bones.
Speaker 1: But this guy is saying the heart, right, that's what's hot.
Speaker 1: But had mar here he wanted his heart brought back. However,
Speaker 1: he did not ask for the heart alone. He wanted
Speaker 1: his heart and his right hand returned for burial. Why
Speaker 1: the hand well? Another example cited earlier in the paper,
Speaker 1: she mentioned Prince Bishop Gottfried of Spitzenberg, who died in
Speaker 1: the Third Crusade in the year eleven ninety. He asked
Speaker 1: not for his heart to be returned, but for his hand. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it got lost along the way. Whoops, But she
Speaker 1: ends up writing quote. It seems that for the English
Speaker 1: the heart was important because it represented humanities in her being.
Speaker 1: Among medieval German speaking people, especially the prince bishops, who
Speaker 1: represented both secular and religious powers, other body parts such
Speaker 1: as bones or arms could also fulfill that function. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was so interesting. It makes me wonder
Speaker 1: about the origin of this, this difference in in metaphor
Speaker 1: and and uh in an idiom. So if in medieval
Speaker 1: England it's commonly understood that your heart, the organ that
Speaker 1: pumps blood, is the symbol of your soul. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the most important seat of your character and your integrity.
Speaker 1: But in German speaking lands it might just as well
Speaker 1: be your bones or your right hand that symbolized that
Speaker 1: core part of you. What linguistic or cultural or literary
Speaker 1: differences in those different language traditions might have caused this,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, I mean, on one level, all this
Speaker 1: is making me think of all the potential for various
Speaker 1: horror movies and so forth, But it also makes me
Speaker 1: think of some of those crawling hand movies like The
Speaker 1: Beast with Five Fingers. You know, like, there is something
Speaker 1: about the hand that in the treatment given by these
Speaker 1: various horror films, and all of them are kind of
Speaker 1: interconnected and ultimately stemming from some of the same source material,
Speaker 1: but there is this idea in them that the hand
Speaker 1: retains something of of the original individual, and therefore you
Speaker 1: can it's really not that much of a stretch for
Speaker 1: even a very heart centric um or cardiocentric or I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what you would would call this, a very
Speaker 1: heart centric um um culture to realize that, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can easily imagine how the hand could end up getting
Speaker 1: all of the attention instead, because we can see examples
Speaker 1: of that just in our various fictions and and folk tellings.
Speaker 1: So anyway, if it comes down to it, most teutonicus
Speaker 1: versus heart burial? Which team are you on? Uh? But
Speaker 1: it's the bones or or heart in hand? Boiling to
Speaker 1: take the bones home or taking the heart in the
Speaker 1: body different places? Well, I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be an inconvenient so I don't know the heart. It
Speaker 1: seems like it might be a nice tidy way to
Speaker 1: go about things. Therefore, I don't know if if you know,
Speaker 1: it's ultimately about what what they feel comfortable with, if
Speaker 1: they would rather do the boiling, Okay, I would maybe
Speaker 1: it'd rather not be milk. Uh, but that's just me.
Speaker 1: And obviously I'm not gonna really care all that much.
Speaker 1: After after we've reached that point, I'm seeing visions of
Speaker 1: a gigantic instant pot that is not product integration. They
Speaker 1: did not they did not ask us to to put
Speaker 1: that image in everywhere. That would be the best bit
Speaker 1: of spawn ever. Alright, Well, obviously we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from everyone else out there, which would you prefer bones
Speaker 1: or or heart? Hand or hand? And if you choose bones,
Speaker 1: what's the sub stance you want to hear your your
Speaker 1: bones stripped of their flesh? And I guess you can
Speaker 1: choose anything you can choose wine, you can choose milk,
Speaker 1: you can choose Yahoo. I don't know. You know what's
Speaker 1: your favorite beverage? Pour it up? Yeah? You know the
Speaker 1: chocolate who? You? Who? You Who? Not? Yeah? You who?
Speaker 1: Yahoo is the website? You who is the chocolate beverage?
Speaker 1: Though um they're there are other brands of the of
Speaker 1: of of the chocolate beverage as well, but yeah, you
Speaker 1: who boiled? And you Who? I think you're onto something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so hey, we'd love to hear from everyone out there
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts on what we've discussed in these
Speaker 1: two episodes, or if there are some other interesting ideas
Speaker 1: of how the heart is seen or treated either physically,
Speaker 1: is a part of a funeral custom or sacrificial custom
Speaker 1: in different cultures in different times in history, or if
Speaker 1: there's something from a mythological level or even a purely
Speaker 1: fictional level you'd like to bring up share it with us.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. I know, just be
Speaker 1: putting this episode together right across a few other monsters
Speaker 1: and creatures from various full glorees and folk traditions. Uh so,
Speaker 1: I may have to come back to some of those
Speaker 1: maybe on future episodes of The Monster Fact reminder for
Speaker 1: everyone out there that this is stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind were primarily a science podcast with our core episodes
Speaker 1: like this one on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Monday's
Speaker 1: we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do Monster Factor Artifact,
Speaker 1: and on Fridays we do Weird How Cinema. That's our
Speaker 1: time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film, such as The Beast with Five
Speaker 1: Fingers that's about a crawling hand, or Return of the
Speaker 1: Evil Dead, which well it's also Return of the Blind Dead,
Speaker 1: depending on which time do you want to go in.
Speaker 1: That has to do with undead uh templars coming back
Speaker 1: to life, so uh some of those have touched on
Speaker 1: some of the ideas that we discussed in this episode.
Speaker 1: Mad Love also about possessed hands the soul in their
Speaker 1: hands in that movie, and that's right, How good iver
Speaker 1: you get? Mad Love? All right? Well, uh big thanks
Speaker 1: to our audio producer J J. Pauseway. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for
Speaker 1: the future, or just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio with the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.