WEBVTT - From the Vault: Because It Is My Heart, Part 2 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.720 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:09.400 is Robert. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.479 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. Time 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.640 for an episode from the Vault. This is part two 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.200 of the series that aired last Saturday. This is Because 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:23.400 It Is My Heart, Part two, originally from February sixteenth, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.520 twenty twenty three. Let's jump right in. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.479 A heart ate Loki. In the embers it lay and 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:36.080 half cooked, found he the woman's heart, with child from 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.720 the woman Loki soon was, And thence among men came 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:46.280 the monsters. All the sea, storm driven seeks heaven itself. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.600 Over the earth it flows, the air grows sterile. Then 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.520 follow the snows and the furious winds. For the gods 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.640 are doomed, and the end is death. Then comes another, 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.560 a greater than all, Though never I dare his name 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.839 to speak. Few are they now that farther can see 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.160 than the moment when Othen shall meet the Wolf. 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.560 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.039 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.640 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Oh 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:30.759 where did that poem come from? 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:31.000 Rob? 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.120 Is that one of those Icelandic texts. 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.119 Yeah, this is from the lay of Hindler, a Norse 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.800 poem from the twelfth century or perhaps a little later. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:43.600 But in this I know that the wording and in 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.559 this translation can maybe be a little confusing. A heart 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:51.280 is not eating Loki. Loki, the Norse trickster god is 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.520 consuming a heart, and after consuming that heart, he becomes 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.720 with child, and those children are the monsters that plague 0:01:59.720 --> 0:01:59.960 you man. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.320 I think this poem is easier to follow if you 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.400 read it in Yoda voice because it follows Yoda syntax. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.520 It does a heart Loki. Yeah, you know. So. In 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.640 this poem we see just one example of heart consumption 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.519 in Norse mythology. There are other tales. There are tales 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.680 of men eating the bloody hearts of slain dragons to 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.680 gain their strength and courage, and this is a motif 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.959 we see continued in other European myths as well, such 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.640 as that of the Germanic hero a Cigarette who consumes 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.040 the heart of the dragon Faffnir after slaying the monster. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.440 In one telling of that, this kind of goes back 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.400 to episodes from last year that will be rerunning shortly. 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.919 In one telling of this, avac he has the dragon's heart. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:46.800 He cooks it over the fire too, and so he 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.360 can eat it, and in doing so he burns his 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.720 hand on those delicious blood juices of the heart, and 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.880 he instinctively licks his hand because he's been burned. And 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.400 the taste of the dragon's blood is said to give 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.000 him the ability to understand all languages. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.840 Oh, this reminds me of the Salmon of knowledge. Is 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:06.959 that the comparison there? 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.480 Yeah, that's that's I think exactly the comparison. I don't 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.480 remember this coming up, but there's a lot of a 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:15.000 lot of those tales are interconnected, and some of their 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:16.959 themes and sometimes the details. 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.960 Well, obviously we are back with part two of our 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.720 series on the removal of hearts, a topic that Rob 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.839 you have brilliantly chosen for the week of Valentine's Day, 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.280 because as much as we associate with love, with the 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.000 giving around and the trading of symbolic heart imagery, we 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:37.760 also do you know, love is a lot about like 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:38.920 getting your heart ripped out? 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.880 Yeah? Yeah, and of course that we love those metaphors, 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:44.880 especially the week of Valentine's Day. 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.680 Well, so, in the previous episode we ended up focusing 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:54.360 on some various traditions of heart removal in ancient Egyptian 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:59.119 religion and in a Mesoamerican context. And today we're going 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.560 to be starting off in accordance with the poem you read, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.280 looking at some Norse traditions. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.320 That's right. And I found a really great book that 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.360 I used in putting this section together. It's called A 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.400 History of the Heart by O. M. Hoystad of Telmark 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.839 University College in Norway. The author here is of Norse 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.600 descent and frequently mentions that in the book. In the 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.600 book itself doesn't just deal with Norse traditions of the heart. 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.440 He also touches on some of the examples we discussed 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.839 in the last episode. But he spends a lot of 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:35.760 time discussing the Norse idea of the heart and what 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:37.800 they thought the heart did, and kind of like the 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:44.240 way that these ideas affected expectations of physiology. So as 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:48.400 Hoystod discusses, the Norse saw the heart as the seat 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.440 of courage, which you know, that squares with a lot 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:53.680 of other traditions as well, and a lot of the 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.920 ways we talk about the heart metaphorically today, but it 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.560 was also seen as the seed of the mind. Now, 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.960 obviously we get into Norse culture, and there's there's a 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.760 lot in Norse culture beyond the warrior ethos and warrior culture. 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.599 But Hoystot is pretty quick in this book to say 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.320 like there was there was a certain ruthless edge to 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.200 Norse culture as well, and we see that in the 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.720 way they treated the heart and what Once more, in 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:21.720 reading this, I was reminded again of that C. S. 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.000 Lewis quote that we discussed in a previous episode of 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.440 about the unloving heart, how it becomes this dark thing 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.640 and an encased thing that is that is cold and 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.479 and and unflappable, but also you know, it's it cuts 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.599 you off from from any like legitimate feeling and connection. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.840 Uh yeah, his point in that quote being that love 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.040 is by nature becoming vulnerable, and you can defend yourself 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.280 against becoming vulnerable, but that has its own consequences, right 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:52.280 the Norse. 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.000 I don't know how the Norse of old would have 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.719 have taken that that quote. They would have been like, yeah, 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.520 perhaps seal that hard off, let it grow nice and cold, 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.240 because that basically is one of the attributes of the 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.159 ideal Norse warrior heart. His voice Dood discusses in the book. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:11.800 In some accounts, it even seems to you to go 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.000 beyond the merely metaphorical, and it seems to be seen 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.200 as a biological reality, either the physiological result of bravery 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.560 or its cause. So we're talking about a heart that 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:27.440 is shriveled, that is cold, that doesn't have a lot 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.880 of blood in it, and it doesn't quiver. So in 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.680 the fust Broad saga, this is the saga of the 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.960 foster Brothers, or the saga of the Sworn Brothers. This 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.159 is a tale of the eleventh century surviving in a 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.720 trio of I think each one is incomplete thirteenth century manuscripts, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.520 and it's in this particular tale it's said that following 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.440 the death of a brave warrior named tor Gear, they 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:56.360 take the warrior, they lay him out. He's like laid 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.920 out on a stone or a table or something, and 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.039 they open up his guest so that it could be 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.400 seen what a brave man's heart truly looks like, because 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.760 they were curious, is it, like they say, is a 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.920 brave courageous man's heart? Is it small? Is it cold? 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.960 Is it shriveled? Is it like the heart of the grinch? 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.560 Before it grows three sizes. M Is it in fact 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.720 free of the blood that would cause it to quiver 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.680 and make one a coward? Or is it? Indeed you 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.360 have the small, firm, cold heart of a warrior. And 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.720 in this account, supposedly this is exactly what they find. 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.800 They cut him open and they say, yes, it's all true, 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.400 like look at this heart. Behold this shrivelled cold heart 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.800 of a warrior. And so hoist I discusses this a bit. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:42.120 He he references some other accounts. There's a one of 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.760 a Norse warrior heart from the hell Gees saga. This 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.360 is a quick quote from that quote. Fearless was he 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:53.240 bold for battle? Bone hard, his heart within his breast. Now, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:54.800 he stresses, in this case this is more of a 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:59.080 metaphor than anatomical commentary. But he cites the work of 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.560 a Norse his story in a named Claus von See 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.480 on the idea that courage and cowardice can still be 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.400 thought of in Norse thought to stem from quote purely 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:14.280 anatomical relations. So to quote of this quote. The important 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.520 thing for the present argument is that the metaphors mentioned 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.080 refer to the anatomical composition of the heart, and that 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.120 they see in its smallness, hardness, and absence of blood 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.320 a cause of courage, and not only a symptom of it. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:35.320 Okay, So it is because your interior organs have certain 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.800 properties that certain behaviors emerge in you. And so for 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.920 a warrior who's very courageous and very strong in battle, 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.560 it just happens to be because their heart is this 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:47.720 icy little nugget. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:53.200 Yeah O. When speaking of the icy nuggets, he also 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.560 points to the giant Rubny in Norse mythology, who is 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.280 said to be the strongest of all the giants because 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.480 he has a heart of literal stone. 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:03.000 That, yeah, that'll do it. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.080 And he also gets into this account of Rudney going 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.640 up against Thor and and so Rudney's really strong, but 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.960 you know that Thor also has a really tough heart 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.520 and has these you know, magical you know, god given 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.920 hammer and so forth and some other magical items. They 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.200 don't want to go up into a direct battle against them, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.720 so they're like, build a giant, and then they have 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.160 to give it a heart, but no, no hearts are available, 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:27.800 so they put a mayor's heart in there, and it 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.239 doesn't work, like it just throws off the whole construct 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:32.320 but there and then. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:34.960 Sorry, it's like you get the wrong voltage battery. 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:40.720 Yeah, basically, you know, And I think that's in that 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:42.240 we get back. You know, we're talking about some of 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.080 the interpretations of the heart and it's role in the 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.400 body and the person that are more magical and then 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.360 maybe to modern eyes and scientific understanding a little backwards, 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.600 but at the same time, they do realize that there 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.800 is something about the heart that that powers everything. It 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.800 is the center of the being, even if contrary to 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:02.400 this one leg of Norse thought, it has nothing to 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:04.880 do with one's mind exactly. 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.600 And as we talked about in the last episode, it 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.600 is scientifically true that feedback from organs other than the 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.880 brain contributes to the way the brain works. So I 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.480 think the way we put it last time is that, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.559 you know, the brain is the necessary organ for cognition. 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.319 You couldn't think without it. But also it doesn't think 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.160 in a vacuum. It's influenced by organs throughout the body. 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.760 So the digestive system has influence on how the brain works, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.000 how you feel, how you think, and the cardiovascular system 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:34.960 does as well, your heart and your lungs and all that. 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.400 So I think there is for example, I mean, I 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.800 think courage and cowardice would be a great example, because 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.080 that would involve the fight or flight response, which of 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.359 course is based in the nervous system, but then involves 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.840 feedback loops from organs throughout the body, and it does 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:56.280 indeed include regulation of the circulatory and respiration systems, so 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.199 in a way, you are sort of getting feedback from 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:00.959 the heart when you're feeling fear. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.599 Yeah. Yeah, And I think we've discussed this before, but 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.040 I think it would be a mistake to think that 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.080 the Norse had like a simplistic understanding of, say that 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.439 the human inner experience, because you also look at things 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:18.480 like the idea that of Odin's crows. What were their names, 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.600 Hogan and Moonan. I think I'm probably mispronouncing them, But 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.079 we discussed this in the past, how each one has 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.200 a different connotation dealing with like the mind and memory, 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:41.400 as of Oden. So we're going to move on from 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.160 most of the Norse examples here, but we are going 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.160 to get into another European example of heart removal, one 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.960 that I wasn't familiar with until basically researching these episodes. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.920 Right, So we're going to talk about heart burial or 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:59.040 the treatment of the heart in medieval and post medieval 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.679 Christian Europe. Now a major source I was consulting on 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.520 this was a chapter in a collection of archaeology essays. 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.160 The book that it's from is called Body Parts and 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.720 Bodies Whole. That was from Oxbow Books, that's an Oxford 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:20.520 press in twenty ten and the editors were Katerina Rebe Salisbury, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:26.560 Marie Luis Stigsrensen and Jessica Hughes. And the specific chapter 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.880 in question is called heart Burial in Medieval and early 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.800 post Medieval Central Europe by Estella Weiss Crachie, and I 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.240 looked her up. She's a scholar affiliated with the Austrian 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:42.960 Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Archaeological Institute. So between 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:48.080 the introduction of Christianity in Europe and roughly the nineteenth century, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:55.040 the usually near universal ideal for burial practices in Europe 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:59.040 in Christian Europe was straightforward burial of the body whole 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.559 with flesh intact. And there are exceptions to this we're 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.800 going to talk about, but that was basically the norm. 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:11.040 And this could be connected in part to Christian beliefs 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.520 about the afterlife, because strangely, today, I think if you 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.480 ask most Christians what they believe happens after death, they 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.320 will say that their immaterial soul separates from the body 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.839 and goes off to live in Heaven with God for eternity. 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.880 And under this way of thinking, the body is not important. 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.480 It's just sort of the matter that the soul uses 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.800 to live through, and the afterlife will not have a 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.840 material basis. But this is not what the earliest Christians 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.400 buy and large believed, and this is not what's described 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.040 in the earliest Christian texts. They instead speak of what 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:52.160 theologians often call a general resurrection, that at the end 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.520 of the age, all of the dead, the righteous and 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.240 the unrighteous will be resurrected in bodily form to face judgment, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.800 though canfusingly, the apostle Paul writes that it will be 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.680 a kind of changed bodily form, because the present earthly 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.960 flesh and bones that we have now are perishable, and 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.520 so they can't inherit the kingdom. And yet we will 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.280 be raised in bodily forms. So when our bodies are 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.640 raised from the dead, we will be given new spiritual flesh, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.880 which is imperishable. 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:21.520 Synthetic flesh. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.080 You could look at it that way, okay, But anyway, So, 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.160 it was commonly understood by the dominant schools of early 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.760 Christian theologians that the afterlife for believers would consist of 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.400 some form of bodily resurrection, even if the body is 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:39.680 changed somehow, thus giving rise to a desire for funeral 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.280 practices that would keep the body relatively intact. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.520 And I think, knowing that I would never have conceived 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:49.920 that heart removal would be in the cards at all. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.640 Well, I think various procedures that in some way violate 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.400 the wholeness or integrity of the body were controversial with 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.520 certain people at certain times. And by the way, I 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.520 want to say this whole thing about like the body. 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.200 This leads to a great digression on the implications for 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.400 cannibalism in early Christian thought, because like, okay, what if 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.200 you are saved, but then you are killed and eaten 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.080 by a cannibal and your body becomes part of the 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.880 body of the cannibal, what will happen at the resurrection? 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.440 Or what if two cannibals eat a Christian and then 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.040 together the two cannibals have a baby. The baby will 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.960 be made of parts of the Christian that the parents ate, 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.120 So how will God retrieve the bits of the Christian 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.080 from the baby's body and so forth? Like Thomas Aquinas 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.880 participated in discussions about topics of this sort, and it's 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:48.040 a hoot. But anyway, one interesting area we see the 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:54.520 theological implications of Europe shifting from mostly Pagan to mostly 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:59.640 Christian is in attitudes toward funeral practices, specifically toward cremation, 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.040 because apart from the literal implications for the possibility of 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.760 future resurrection, and there were different ideas about this, you know, 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:09.800 some Christian theologians did not place as much importance on 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.800 the integrity of the body, you know, some just didn't 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:15.520 think it was a big deal. I think Augustine didn't 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.800 think it was a big deal. But anyway, cremation was 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.800 not only a way of destroying the body, including in 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.320 a way destroying the bones, but also just sort of 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.360 it was it was culturally associated with paganism. It was 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.080 something that the Pagans did, and thus it was viewed 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.920 as alien and unholy by Christian rulers. So, for example, 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.840 in the seven eighties, and I've seen two different years 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.400 given for this, seven eighty five and seven eighty nine. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.000 I'm not sure why the difference or which one is correct, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.600 but sometime in the seven eighties, the Christian king Charlemagne, 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.720 who eventually style himself as the Emperor of the Holy 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.960 Roman Empire, banned the practice of cremation of the dead 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:01.360 as practiced by the Saxons. And I was looking for 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.399 a quote of this edict. I found it quoted in 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.320 something called European Paganism The Realities of Cult from Antiquity 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.879 to the Middle Ages by Ken Dowden, published in twenty thirteen, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.000 and this quotes it in translation as follows. If anyone 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.800 causes the body of a dead man to be consumed 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.840 by flame according to the right of the Pagans, and 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.679 shall reduce its bones to ashes, he shall suffer capital punishment. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.960 So that's harsh. Cremating a friend or family member's body 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.600 is punishable by death. So you get the idea of 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:41.240 how strongly intact burial was was linked to cultural and 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.240 religious orthodoxy in much of Christian Europe. 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.960 Yeah, the point that it needs to be enforced, apparently 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.119 with the death penalty, you know, I guess drawing just 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.159 this firm line that needs to be enforced in the 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:58.680 view of the time between us and them. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.320 But to come back to Why's Cracheese article. Despite intact 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.320 burial being the norm, there were countercurrents of thinking and practice, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.159 both for cultural and theological reasons. Like again, there were 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.919 some people who didn't think the intactness of the body 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.400 was as important as others did, and for purely practical reasons. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.720 For example, practical reasons would include space real estate. There 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.159 was the common practice of removal of bones from a 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.679 burial place to be taken away to a charnel house 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.439 because you know, there's just not enough space for all 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:34.560 the bodies in the cemetery. 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:36.400 Yeah. Absolutely, And this is I mean, this is something 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.440 you see in cultures around the world where there might 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.560 be some sort of predominant idea about how the dead 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.719 should be buried. But you're going to then come up 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:49.320 against basic environmental constraints on that practice, as well as 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.920 size constraints based on various factors. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:57.280 Exactly. And I've got another practical time and place, time, 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:02.560 place and manner constraint on what can be done with 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.159 the body, and that would be processing the body in 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:11.600 some way to delay putrefaction. This was to preserve the 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.520 corpse for some reason, often either for public display or 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.720 for transport across a long distance. And some of these 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.119 forms of processing, okay, you can imagine some types of 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.760 just like embalming to make the corpse last as long 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.520 as possible. But sometimes this was a little more involved 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.240 than that and could be thought to violate the integrity 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.720 of the body as a whole. Sometimes it involved removing 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.800 things or even more extreme forms of processing, and these 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.040 practices get weirder than you might imagine. So some of 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.359 what we're talking about here is just disembowelment, removal of 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:50.760 the internal organs from the abdominal cavity. Weiscrazi says that 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.680 this became common in the Frankish Empire in the eighth 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.679 and ninth centuries. So you take the guts out, or 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.280 take all the internal organs out. That might have some 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.680 kind of implication for preserving the rest of the body 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.760 for a certain period of time to do something with. 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.320 But in the twelfth century we see the rise of 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:14.720 a practice called most teutonicus, which translates to the German custom. 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:19.320 What is this custom of the Germans? It was boiling 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:20.760 the honored dead. 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:22.040 Oh wow. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.720 Sometimes here's an example of how it would be used. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.000 Sometimes a high ranking warrior or commander would die on 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.320 a campaign in southern Europe or in the Holy Land, 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.320 far away from home. How are his retainers going to 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.879 get the cadaver back to the crypt at the family estate. 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.919 The German speaking crusaders often did not want to be 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.600 buried away from home, you know, in the place where 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.399 they were crusading. They wanted to be buried back at home. 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.440 The body would obviously rot if it were transported intact, 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.440 or you know, by cart or even by ship, trying 0:20:57.480 --> 0:20:59.240 to take it all the way back to Germany or 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.120 Australia where where the warrior came from. So people came 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.760 up with the solution of making that warrior into a 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:10.200 bone broth. You would have crusader stock. So imagine Conrad 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.359 here dies in battle trying to sack a Muslim city 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.040 in Syria, and his servants or his kinsmen get his 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:21.360 body and they boil it until you can be boiled 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.199 in water or in like vinegar or wine, or I 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.440 think sometimes in milk, but in some kind of liquid. 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.440 You boil it until the flesh starts to separate from 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.280 the bones, and then somehow you get the bones clean 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.400 I guess if you boil it long enough, just basically 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:37.679 everything will float off. Or you could boil it for 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.880 a period and then it might require some additional scraping 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.640 with sharp instruments, but you would boil first to get 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.120 the meat off, and then you'd have clean, hygienic bones 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.960 that could be taken back to the estate in Europe 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:52.119 for deposition. 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.359 Yeah, to your point about the stock, we're really close 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.040 to just to butchering here this. 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.720 Yeah, and sometimes I've read so this was not in 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.480 this book chapter I'm talking about it. I read somewhere 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:07.360 that sometimes the organs from this were discarded, and other 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.399 times the organs in the flesh were preserved, like you 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:13.480 might preserve a meat, like by salting them so that 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:16.240 they could be transported somewhere, maybe to be buried separately. 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:22.159 Wow, this seems like a whole area that is overdue 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:26.080 for exploration in some sort of undead you know, templar 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:31.679 fiction or something. You know, you could have the skeletal, 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.760 reanimated remains of this crusader. And what does he want 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:37.600 while he wants his salted organs. 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:42.280 Back, Give me my body back in sausage form. It 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:47.040 is sausage now, and how fitting for a German speaking 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:51.480 medieval noble to become a sausage in death. But anyway, 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.440 so most Teutonicas, by I guess its advocates, was thought 0:22:54.440 --> 0:23:00.320 to avoid violating the prohibition against cremation, specifically Charlemagne's probe, 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.000 because of course it did not involve destruction. 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:04.119 Of the bones. 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.080 You would not be reducing the bones to ashes. The 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.640 bones would be intact. So I think that's good enough. 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.600 You know, the body is intact enough to be considered 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.800