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Episodes 75
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"The pitch was so fastened to the linen cloth, and their shirts so dry and fine and so joining to their flesh, that they began to bren and to cry for help." -Jean Froissart
"The pitch was so fastened to the linen cloth, and their shirts so dry and fine and so joining to their flesh, that they began to bren and to cry for help." -Jean Froissart
Burning What?
Burning What?
This episode features the valiant return of Kara, back from a fresh stint of vacation and she put out a banger of an episode for you. Imagine you're job in the 1300s was to put together a party for the king of France who is already a mass of mental health issues and is so bad, he is considered insane for the day. Access to mental health back then consisted of large volumes of alcohol and someone from the church telling you to suck it up and deal with it...
Since your job is to make this party an event fit for a king and something no one could forget, you decide to pull all the stops and go big or go home. Your idea is to make a bunch of men (king included) get sewn into these outfits, made of flammable material, covered in a flammable tree resin, then smothered in flammable fibers so that the bunch of men (king included) look like hairy wild men running around the ballroom.
Mind you this is the 1300s, torches and candles were the only forms of light... What could possibly go wrong?
So be grateful as you listen to this episode 1. You or your ancestors never got invited to this event and 2. You or your ancestors were never put in charge of making the party "memorable.
Sometimes, it's good to not be the most popular or the most reliable!
Party Trivia
Party Trivia
The "wild men's" linen suits were soaked in pitch and covered in flax to mimic body hair essentially making each dancer a human torch.
The man who survived did so by breaking his chain and throwing himself into a tub of dishwater sitting nearby. Luck, desperation, and dirty water saved his life.
The torch was held by the king's own younger brother, Louis, Duke of Orléans who arrived late and according to some sources, drunk.
All six performers were chained together. What was meant to look dramatic on the dance floor became a death trap the moment fire broke out.
The Duchess of Berry saved the King of France by throwing her skirts over him. No skirts, no king.
Show Notes
Show Notes
See Kara's notes for this episode below ⬇️
Ball of Burning Men.docxBehind the Episode: Ball of Burning Men
Behind the Episode: Ball of Burning Men
In the “Burning Men” episode, I mentioned that I went down a glass delusion rabbit hole. After some consideration, I decided to include what I learned about the peculiar delusion. It could be argued that glass delusion can be connected to the popular culture of the period. The condition was common enough in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that it had made it into the period’s poetry and stage plays.[1] Charles VI was the most famous instance of this in the medieval period, but there were many others after that. One man was recorded to believe his butt was made of glass and he was afraid to sit down “lest he broke his ‘crackling hinderparts’”.[2] Over the course of a century, depictions of glass delusion appeared not only in certain medical records, but also literature, art, and theater during the period.[3] While we cannot really medically diagnose Charles VI and his mental health, historians continue to study the phenomenon to explain possible reasons why the glass delusion was so prominent. Gill Speak is the historian who is most notable in her research on the glass delusion phenomenon. In her article, "El licenciado Vidriera" and the Glass Men of Early Modern Europe, she states that glass delusion was connected to the theological beliefs, the popularity of melancholy in literature during the period, and the medicinal belief that the body was a container for the soul that could be broken.[4] In other words, there is a good argument that glass delusion and melancholy occurred as an expression of mental illness that we cannot accurately identify and took the form of being made of glass due to the popular beliefs of the time period.
[1] Gill Speak. “‘El Licenciado Vidriera’ and the Glass Men of Early Modern Europe.” The Modern Language Review 85, no. 4 (1990): 850.
[2] Gill Speak, “‘El Licenciado Vidriera’ and the Glass Men of Early Modern Europe,” 851.
[3] Gill Speak, “‘El Licenciado Vidriera’ and the Glass Men of Early Modern Europe,” 850-865.
[4] Gill Speak, “‘El Licenciado Vidriera’ and the Glass Men of Early Modern Europe,” 863.
Did you enjoy this episode? Check out the recommended episodes below
Did you enjoy this episode? Check out the recommended episodes below
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