Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Imagine having a debate about any topic in the universe,
Speaker 1: from politics or sports teams to which type of pizza
Speaker 1: is better New York or New Haven, and then someone
Speaker 1: says those frustrating words, Hey, I'm just playing Devil's advocate.
Speaker 1: With that, your light hearted jabs about the best pizza
Speaker 1: toppings and cheese to tomato sauce ratios. I'll die in
Speaker 1: your throat. You'll be all night, and by the time
Speaker 1: you're done, you won't even be sure if you like
Speaker 1: pizza anymore. These days, the phrase devil's advocate refers to
Speaker 1: someone who will take a position they may not necessarily
Speaker 1: agree with, just for the sake of argument. But the
Speaker 1: favorite phrase of the worst person in your debate club
Speaker 1: actually used to be a real job. You see. Back
Speaker 1: in the sixteenth century, the advocatus diaboli was the person
Speaker 1: who literally took the side of the devil against the
Speaker 1: saints for over a thousand years. Becoming a saint in
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic Church was kind of up to individual bishops.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until the eleven hundreds that the process of
Speaker 1: becoming a saint, called canonization, was formalized by the pope.
Speaker 1: To become a saint, someone would have to fit very
Speaker 1: specific parameters. First, the candidate would have to be dead
Speaker 1: for at least five years. Next, the church would launch
Speaker 1: an investigation to ensure that they lived a holy life
Speaker 1: full of virtue. After that, the church confirmed that people
Speaker 1: were drawn to prayer because of the candidate's actions. And finally,
Speaker 1: the church needed to prove that the can that it
Speaker 1: performed two verified miracles, complete with witnesses and evidence. If
Speaker 1: all those points could be checked off the list, then
Speaker 1: the candidate could officially become a saint. Well. In fifteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, Pope Sixtus the Fifth decided the canonization process
Speaker 1: needed to be stricter to prove a potential saint's holiness
Speaker 1: beyond a shadow of a doubt. They needed to treat
Speaker 1: the whole thing like a legal trial. They had to
Speaker 1: argue for and against canonization, and present evidence to a
Speaker 1: jury on a saint's holiness. If the church was going
Speaker 1: to argue in favor of a saint, then the opposition
Speaker 1: needed counsul as well. The devil would need an advocate,
Speaker 1: also called promatorre fidae, which means promoter of the faith.
Speaker 1: It was the devil advocate's job to question the evidence
Speaker 1: supporting a saint's case. The devil's advocate would cross examine
Speaker 1: witnesses and call for expert testimony. They posited logical questions
Speaker 1: to the court. For example, if it was claimed that
Speaker 1: a candidate had cured a believer's disease ease, the devil's
Speaker 1: advocate would look for other explanations, like if the believer
Speaker 1: had taken medicine or if their condition had merely passed
Speaker 1: on its own. If the saints' claim stood up to
Speaker 1: the questioning, it would be allowed to be added as evidence.
Speaker 1: The saints in question also needed representation, which came in
Speaker 1: the form of a god's advocate. The god's advocate would
Speaker 1: defend their clients and try to plead the case proving
Speaker 1: their miracles. Now you might be questioning why the church
Speaker 1: had a devil's advocate at all. Why wouldn't it just
Speaker 1: be simpler for the pope to decide whether someone was
Speaker 1: a saint and call it a day. If only it
Speaker 1: were that easy. You see, in fifteen eighty seven, the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church was in a crisis. Protestantism was on the rise,
Speaker 1: and whole countries like England and France had broken with
Speaker 1: the pope. In just two short decades, the Puritans would
Speaker 1: leave England to set up their own religious utopia in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: The Vatican would no longer depend on its congregants to
Speaker 1: follow its decisions unquestioningly. Therefore, they wanted to present themselves
Speaker 1: as authority who took opposing viewpoints into account. By giving
Speaker 1: the space for the Devil's Advocate to argue against sainthood,
Speaker 1: the Church's decision to make someone a saint was that
Speaker 1: much stronger. If the Catholic Church had questioned the saint's
Speaker 1: miracles but still found them credible, it was much harder
Speaker 1: for the Protestant faction to poke holes in the Church's integrity.
Speaker 1: The Devil's Advocate was part of the canonization process for
Speaker 1: nearly four hundred years until Pope John Paul the Second
Speaker 1: streamlined the process in nineteen eighty three. However, the Church
Speaker 1: still invites critics to weigh in on candidates for sainthood.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, for example, they had atheist
Speaker 1: Christopher Hitchins testify against the canonization of Mother Teresa. The
Speaker 1: process certainly has its uses today, nearly four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years after it was first introduced, But that's just
Speaker 1: my opinion. You can take it or leave it. After all,
Speaker 1: I'm just playing devil's advocate here. In our modern day,
Speaker 1: we're familiar with hot shot tech moguls, CEOs with backgrounds
Speaker 1: in stem known for having egos and personalities equal in
Speaker 1: size to their fortunes. But in sixteenth century Europe, when
Speaker 1: science itself was new, public intellectuals looked very different. They
Speaker 1: still had the wealth, and they still had the egos,
Speaker 1: but there was no Internet, no computers, no cars or
Speaker 1: rocket ships for them to invent. That was all hundreds
Speaker 1: of years away. No, the thinkers of the Renaissance started
Speaker 1: with the most fundamental of innovations, observing and mapping the stars.
Speaker 1: It was the astronomers who ruled the headlines in the
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, and among them there was one who was
Speaker 1: more curious than all the others Ticobrahe was born into
Speaker 1: Danish nobility, so from the start he had a fortune.
Speaker 1: In fact, at one point he owned one percent of
Speaker 1: all the wealth in Denmark, and he was a genius
Speaker 1: in college. While other boys fought over girls, he fought
Speaker 1: over math problems. Tko and his cousin once got into
Speaker 1: such a heated mathematical debate that they settled it with
Speaker 1: a duel, and Tiko lost the tip of his nose
Speaker 1: to his cousin's sword. After that, our budding astronomer took
Speaker 1: to wearing a golden nose, which he would reapply with
Speaker 1: a special adhesive he kept in a pouch on his belt.
Speaker 1: And it was around this time that Tico started to
Speaker 1: take an interest in astronomy. After witnessing a solar eclipse,
Speaker 1: the arrogant young man thought that perhaps he was the
Speaker 1: one to get to the bottom of such a cosmic phenomena.
Speaker 1: His passion for math had made him a natural fit
Speaker 1: for astronomy, as he was able to accurately calculate the size, distance,
Speaker 1: and speed of various heavenly bodies. He quickly came to
Speaker 1: the public's attention as he was the first man to
Speaker 1: witness and correctly identify a supernova he observed and measured
Speaker 1: as the star spent a whole year blinking out of existence,
Speaker 1: and thus he was able to put forth that stars
Speaker 1: are not permanently fixed in space, but so lustial bodies
Speaker 1: with unique movements and life spans. As he came into
Speaker 1: the public eye, Tico's flamboyance kept up with his genius.
Speaker 1: If his golden nose wasn't enough to remember him by,
Speaker 1: his two lifelong companions definitely did the trick. The first
Speaker 1: was a dwarf named Yeepey. How Yepay and Tico met
Speaker 1: is a mystery lost to time, but they became inseparable. Tico,
Speaker 1: despite being a man of science, believed that Yeepey was
Speaker 1: psychic and always wanted him on hand to predict the future.
Speaker 1: His second strange companion was a moose that he kept
Speaker 1: as a pet. And you heard that right. He simply
Speaker 1: thought it was a more attractive and noble creature than
Speaker 1: any other animal he had encountered, and as with Yepey,
Speaker 1: he took the moose everywhere he went. It slept inside
Speaker 1: his house and followed his carriage as he traveled. But
Speaker 1: there was one infamous occasion where Tiko's love for his
Speaker 1: pet got them both into trouble. You see, he brought
Speaker 1: the moose with them to a dinner party, where he
Speaker 1: wowed the guests with its size and friendliness. Even more interesting, though,
Speaker 1: he showed the guests how the moose had a love
Speaker 1: for Danish beer, and the moose kept drinking throughout the night,
Speaker 1: either to amuse the guests or because it really did
Speaker 1: love beer. And while a moose may have a higher
Speaker 1: tolerance than a human, it can still succumb to intoxication.
Speaker 1: Such was the case at that fateful dinner party, where
Speaker 1: after a long night of imbibing, the moose tried to
Speaker 1: climb a flight of stairs. Unfortunately, that is one obstacle
Speaker 1: for which a moose is not well suited, let alone
Speaker 1: a drunk one. It slipped, tumbling down the stairs in
Speaker 1: what must have been a one of a kind calamity.
Speaker 1: Tiko rushed to its side, horrified to find that his
Speaker 1: moose companion was injured. The exact nature of its injuries
Speaker 1: is lost to time, but soon the moose succumbed, Tico's
Speaker 1: companion was dead. It's a strange chapter in a strange life.
Speaker 1: Tiko would go on to many adventures, including owning his
Speaker 1: own island and having an affair with a queen. Some
Speaker 1: even believe that he was ultimately murdered, potentially by mercury poisoning.
Speaker 1: While fact in fiction get harder to separate with the
Speaker 1: passage of time, Tico Brahe's flamboyant personality still calls attention
Speaker 1: to itself, flickering like a curious supernova from the deep
Speaker 1: distant past. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.