9 historical facts that sound crazy

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Burning alive camels of Tamerlane, cannibalism in Holland, trials of pigs and fights with blows below the belt.

1. King Henry VIII was beaten by a constable and imprisoned for vagrancy

In the 16th century, King Henry VIII ruled England. A completely normal monarch: he saved the kingdom from the influence of the Pope of Rome with the Holy See, founded the Anglican Church, initiated the Reformation in England, and generally strengthened the country's position on the world stage.

True, at the same time he caused significant damage to the treasury, arranging feasts and buying cups and tapestries in quantities for which the English economy was not designed, and arranged massive repressions of political opponents. He was also married six times and successfully executed some of his wives.

In his early years of reign, Henry was characterized by his contemporaries as "an educated, attractive and charismatic king." But in the later ones - as a "lustful, selfish and paranoid tyrant." In general, everything is as usual.

Heinrich was a versatile personality and in his free time from politics he went in for sports, played the lute, sang, composed music, wrote poetry and prose, played dice and tennis, participated in knightly tournaments and hunted. Collected a huge library and knew at least three languages. But by old age he grew fat and had a lot of diseases. And he also has new entertainment.

In Henry's extensive collection of weapons, there was a very wild device - a hybrid of a mace and a three-barreled pistol. The product was ironically called Holy Water Sprinkler.

The king disguised himself in an inconspicuous outfit, armed himself with this device and went on his own to patrol the streets in search of vagabonds and idlers. The fact is that His Majesty adopted a law against parasitism, according to which able-bodied people, noticed for collecting alms three times, were subject to execution. When the king was bored, he personally contributed to the implementation of this decree.

In general, Heinrich was leisurely strolling through the night London with his mace and suddenly bumped into a guard. The commissioner asked the Majesty for documents. Henry tried to hit the law enforcement officer, but he took the mace from him with his bare hands, hit the cuffs and sent the violator to prison.

Everything is according to the law: the unemployed cannot walk the streets, and even less so for an incomprehensible type with an unregistered weapon.

One can only imagine the horror of the guard when the next morning at the trial Henry was identified as the king. The constable was already mentally saying goodbye to life, but the monarch did not hold a grudge against him. On the contrary, he generously rewarded the guard for his diligence. Henry got along well with his cellmates during the night in the dungeon, so he also ordered to improve the diet and conditions of the prisoners and ordered to increase the supply of bread and coal given to them.

This proves that it is sometimes beneficial for monarchs to spend a little time closer to mere mortals.

2. Tamerlane burned camels alive to frighten enemy elephants

Once the famous emir Timur, aka Tamerlane, got bored. Judge for yourself: you are already 60, you are the ruler of a huge empire, you defeated everyone you could reach, captured everything that lies badly. And then suddenly I realized that you simply have nothing more to do.

For some time Timur amused himself, equipping his capital, Samarkand, burrowing it with palaces and gardens, and played chess (perhaps it was he who invented Cazaux, Jean-Louis and Knowlton, Rick (2017). A World of Chess is a variation of the game "Tamerlane's chess").

But soon he got tired of city-planning simulators, and he abandoned chess, suspecting that all rivals succumb to him, so as not to upset. Therefore, Tamerlane decided, out of nothing to do, to seize India - there just began a civil war in the Delhi Sultanate.

The official reason: "I, Emir Timur, and my subjects are devout Muslims, and you are idolaters in your India." Tamerlane was a distinguished opportunist and regularly used Islam for his own political ends.

The army of Timur, which he, as the nomads is supposed to have, led personally, invaded India and began traditional Mongolian amusements: looting and capturing civilians into slavery. When there were too many slaves - about 100,000 people, Tamerlane ordered all of them to be eliminated - just in case, so as not to interfere.

The slightest bit significant resistance awaited him only on the approach to the walls of Delhi. The troops of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah of Delhi were ready to meet Tamerlane with a march of 120 war elephants. They were dressed up in chain mail, and, according to rumors, they smeared their tusks with poison.

This became a serious problem: the Mongol cavalry was afraid of the elephant's roar, and the soldiers themselves, who had never seen proboscis, were horrified. Timur's army began to retreat. An unconventional solution was urgently required, and Tamerlane found it.

The emir ordered that all the camels in his army be loaded with straw, set on fire and driven on the elephants.

The distraught camels rushed to the battle formations of Mahmud, wreaking havoc and confusion in the orderly ranks of the Indian warriors. Seeing this obscenity, the elephants reasoned logically: "If this psychopath treats his camels this way, then what will he do to us?" - and decided to immediately withdraw from the battle.

Making a tactical retreat, the elephants threw off the drivers and trampled on a significant part of the defenders of Delhi. The revived Mongols surrounded the defeated opponents and killed the remaining soldiers, and then exterminated, according to various sources, up to 50,000 civilians. In total, up to 1,000,000 civilians were killed during Tamerlane's Indian campaign.

Tamerlane then collected the scattered elephants, formed a new detachment of elephants and successfully used them in the Angora battle against Bayezid the Lightning, almost completely collapsing the Ottoman Empire.

3. The Dutch ate their own prime minister

In 1653, in the Netherlands, a wealthy lawyer, financier and mathematician named Jan de Witt took over to Rowen, H. H. John de Witt: grand pensionary of Holland, the post of great pensionary of the United Provinces. In Holland and Zeeland, this was one of the highest officials - something like the prime minister.

Jan de Witt was a very prominent figure. He defended the country's independence during two wars with England, concluded several lucrative peace treaties, improved the financial affairs of the state - in general, he made Holland great again.

And the Dutch liked him so much that they re-elected him to the post of the great pensioner for 20 years in a row.

But one day everything went awry.

In 1672, King Louis XIV of France took and invaded the United Provinces, and in alliance with England. The Dutch successfully resisted the English fleet, but the French had the advantage on land. In order to delay their advance, the Dutch even had to destroy several dams and flood a couple of other provinces.

Naturally, decadent sentiments were brewing in society. 1672 was named Boxer, CR. Some Second Thoughts on the Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672-1674 The Year of Disaster, in Dutch - Rampjaar. Did you think 2020 was the toughest?

The people who had previously supported de Witt now began to blame him for all their troubles. He was stripped of power, sentenced to exile, and the powers were transferred to stadtholder William of Orange. Jan's brother, Cornelis de Witt, was imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up conspiracy charges. But this was not enough for the Dutch.

On August 20, Jan de Witt went to the Hague prison to say goodbye to his brother before exile. A drunken crowd surrounded him and the beating began. Cornelis was dragged out of the cell and began to beat him along with his brother. Both were simply torn to pieces.

Then they cut off pieces from the bodies of the brothers, roasted them on a fire and eaten them.

The half-eaten bodies were left hanging upside down until they were gnawed down to the skeletons of a bird. So much for the people's love.

This spectacle was captured in his painting "The Corpses of the Brothers de Witt" by their contemporary, the Golden Age artist Jan de Baen. Before that, by the way, he painted portraits of both - still alive - de Witts.

4. In ancient Greece and Rome, wounds were tied up with cobwebs

Life was not easy for the average Roman legionnaire. Either an arrow will fly into the knee, or some unwashed barbarians will throw a spear in the eye. Therefore, the Romans were among the first in history to organize medical units in their legions.

And for dressing wounds, they often used not a simple cloth, but a cobweb. Why? Perhaps spiders were believed to bring good luck, or something like that. By the way, the Greeks did the same: they cleaned the wound with honey and vinegar and stuffed more cobwebs into it. The patient is ready - carry the next one.

Penicillin, antibiotics and normal bandages were not brought to the Roman medical units, so the legionnaires did what they could.

In general, theoretically, bandaging wounds with cobwebs makes some sense. Research from the University of Wyoming shows that it promotes blood clotting, as it is rich in vitamin K, helps maintain a clean damaged surface and prevents infection. It is not rejected by the human body and can be used for better engraftment of implants.

Another thing is that the experiments used a spider web grown in sterile boxes by specially trained spiders. If you wrap your finger with material collected in the attic, you risk getting tetanus.

And some spiders even cover their webs with poison in order to meet guests with maximum warmth and care.

5. In Strasbourg in the 16th century, 400 people suddenly began to dance and some danced to death

In July 1518, a woman named Troffea decided to go out and dance. What drove her is not clear, because she danced, according to various sources, from four to six days.

Several other young women first tried to stop her, but then began to dance with her. Then they were joined by men and the number of dancers increased to 34 people, and then to 400.

So they danced until the magistrate of Strasbourg and the local bishop intervened and ordered everyone to be rounded up and sent to the hospital. This whole disco lasted no less than a month.

Some particularly violent dancers have managed to die - most likely from heart attacks, strokes and physical exhaustion. According to the most daring estimates, 15 people were killed per day.

However, this figure may well be an exaggeration of later chroniclers. In particular, the famous alchemist and physician Paracelsus, who investigated the causes of the dancing plague eight years later.

However, the fact that people for no apparent reason fell into madness and threw themselves into a dance is confirmed quite reliably. And A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania happened not only in Strasbourg, but also in Erfurt, Maastricht and other cities in West Germany, the Netherlands and North-Eastern France.

The disease is called "St. Vitus dance".

Among the possible reasons for what happened are mass hysteria on the basis of stress (life in the Middle Ages disposed to this), intoxication with ergot bread (poisoning with it is called ergotism), which contains alkaloids that act as LSD, or simply religious ecstasy.

6. The son of the Roman emperor Claudius accidentally killed himself with a pear

Claudius was not a bad emperor: he built a bunch of roads, aqueducts and canals, restored the Roman economy after it was abused by his predecessor, Caligula, and began the conquest of Britain. In general, a normal ruler, there have been worse.

From his first wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, he had a son - Tiberius Claudius Drusus. The emperor betrothed him in advance to the daughter of the commander of his praetorian guard, Sejanus. This marriage was supposed to build bridges between Claudius and the Praetorians, but Drusus mixed all the cards.

At a feast, he threw a pear into the air. Caught her with his mouth. Choked and died. Everything.

The Roman historian Suetonius wrote about this. And the moral is this: do not indulge in food.

7. In medieval Europe, animals were judged

With criminals in the Middle Ages, they never really stood on ceremony. Gender, age, physical condition and even biological species Themis cared little. For that matter, it didn't matter at all whether the defendant was alive at all.

Therefore, if the law was violated not by a person, but by an animal, bird or even an insect, medieval European courts still held a hearing. The accused were assigned lawyers, allowed to call witnesses, their bleating or growling was recorded in the protocol - in general, everything was according to the rules of jurisprudence.

Most often, the defendants were pigs. They could attack and eat small children left unattended. The killers were tried to the fullest extent.

For example, in 1386 in the French city of Falaise, a pig, gnawed a baby named Jean le Meaux on the face and hand, which the latter did not expect, as expected. The lawyer could not find extenuating circumstances, and after a nine-day investigation, the defendant's paw and snout were chopped off, thus reproducing the injuries inflicted on the victim. And then they dressed them in human clothes and hung them up on the gallows.

At the same time, the executioner got his gloves dirty and demanded from the local viscount, who was in charge of the process, 10 sous for new ones. He received the money, which he was “very pleased with”.

Another interesting trial of sow took place, in 1394 in Normandy, in the city of Morten. This time, before being hanged, the pig was also dragged through the streets to the shouts of the crowd: “Shame! A shame! This is because there was an aggravating circumstance: the accused not only ate the child, but did it on Friday - and this is a fast day.

It wasn't just pigs that were tried. Once in 1474 in Switzerland, in the city of Basel, a rooster was sentenced, to be burned. Why? Because, according to the hostess, he denied the Lord, became a sorcerer, entered into a relationship with Satan and laid an egg without a yolk. And from such eggs, as you know, basilisks hatch - monsters that turn people with their eyes to stone.

Basilisk is not a snake from "Harry Potter", but a hybrid of a rooster, dragon, lizard and toad, poisonous, killing with eyes and breath, and spitting up sour cream. It can be killed with weasel urine and rooster crows. Yes, the superstitious people of the Middle Ages had more fantasy than Rowling.

The defendant's guilt was proven, he was sent to the fire, and the egg was destroyed before the monster was born.

They also tried locusts for spoiling crops, rats for eating grain on an especially large scale and not only.

For example, in 1451 in Lausanne, a trial was carried out over leeches, and they passed such a measure of judicial restraint: the bloodsuckers were ordered to leave the vicinity of the city. The leeches disobeyed, and the local bishop excommunicated them. I could have imposed a penance for a start, but I decided to slash from the shoulder. The leeches must have been very upset.

8. Paint was made from mummies. And they ate them

There is such a paint - mummy brown, or egyptian brown, or caput mortuum ("dead man's head"). It has a rich brown hue - something between burnt and untreated umber. She was highly appreciated by the Pre-Raphaelite artists.

In the XVI-XVII centuries, it was made from white resin, myrrh and crushed remains of ancient Egyptian mummies - both human and feline. The mummies of the Guanches, the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands, were used for the same purposes.

The problem is that you can't get enough of mummies for all the artists, so paint sellers had to go for tricks.

When a normal mummy was not at hand, one was made from criminals or slaves. One seller in the city of Alexandria made as many as 40 pieces with his own hand.

In the 19th century, when artists began to find out what they, in fact, paint with, paint began to dramatically lose its popularity. For example, Baronet Edward Burne-Jones solemnly buried a tube with such a pigment, giving honors to the deceased. Now a similar shade is obtained from a mixture of kaolin, quartz, goethite and hematite.

Mummies were also used to make the drug mummy, or mumiyo, - a mixture of resin and crushed mummies, an aphrodisiac, taken orally. And lollipops with honey (medicine for all diseases, taken orally).

But the rumor that steam locomotives were drowned with mummies is a myth that appeared thanks to the work of Mark Twain.

Judge for yourself: how far will you go on them? Here you need a mummy of some kind of mammoth. No, good old coal is much better.

9. The perpetrators were identified in court through trials and duels

In the Middle Ages, there were some problems with the conduct of the investigation: fingerprints could not be collected, DNA analysis could not be carried out, surveillance cameras were not yet widespread.

Therefore, it remained to rely only on the testimony of witnesses. And in the absence of such - at God's will. Since it was not possible to directly figure it out, workarounds had to be used.

Method One - Ordals Herbermann, Charles, ed. Ordeals. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, that is, tests by fire or water. The defendant was given a hot stone or a piece of iron or lead that was reddened by the heat. Managed to carry the required number of steps - justified. Potential witches and heretics should be drowned or doused with boiling water, the survivors were forgiven. It was believed that God would help the innocent.

As you can imagine, he helped few.

Method two - trial by duel, which is even more interesting. During the battles, all sorts of funny incidents happened. For example, one such duel was described by the chronicler Galbert of Bruges in his chronicle "The Betrayal and Murder of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders." One knight, Herman the Iron, accused the other, Guy of Steenward, of complicity in the murder of the count. They started a legal duel, and this is what came of it:

Guy knocked down his opponent from his horse and pressed him with a spear … Then Herman gutted Guy's horse, rushing at him with his sword. Guy, falling from his horse, fell on Herman with a drawn sword. It was a long and fierce fight with a clash of swords until both were tired and started fighting.

Herman moved his hand to Guy's cuirass, where he was not protected, grabbed him by the testicles and, collecting all his strength, threw Guy away from him. By this movement, all of Guy's lower body was crushed, and he surrendered, screaming that he was defeated and he was dying.

Galbert of Bruges Excerpt from "The Betrayal and Murder of Karl the Good, Count of Flanders"

Herman was declared the winner, and the wounded Guy, along with the other conspirators who were guilty of the Count's murder, were hanged.