Let's get medieval!
We now continue our journey through humanity's history, because, seriously now, do we have anything better to do? Of course! Though it would be far more pleasant and less painful, so on we go.
The Middle Ages were...how should I put it?...not the best we ever had. It started with the fall of the Western Roman Empire (about 600 - 1000 A.D.) and ended around 1500 A.D. Which, by my flawless calculations, means 500 to 900 years of conveniently-being-fucked-around people.
So as I said, the Western Roman Empire fell as a consequence of being ran down by the Vikings, Huns, Germanic people, Arabs and Hungarians. Thanks guys, we owe you one.
Portrayed here: Bjorn, the leader of the Viking army
posing for the "Men's Health" magazine,
following his victory.
Since they hadn't much to do, people started to panic thus creating the Dark Age, which wasn't that dark in fact, more like a transition period towards...Hell, I don't know what were they aiming for but at least we got something out of this whole (or)deal, something to make our life more pleasant:
The white background.As Wikipedia puts it: "The breakdown of Roman society was dramatic. The patchwork of petty rulers was incapable of supporting the depth of civic infrastructure required to maintain libraries, public baths, arenas, and major educational institutions. Any new building was on a far smaller scale than before. The social effects of the fracture of the Roman state were manifold. Cities and merchants lost the economic benefits of safe conditions for trade and manufacture, and intellectual development suffered from the loss of a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections. As it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance, there was a collapse in trade and manufacture for export."
So technically they had the perfect setup for a Hercules or Xena episode, except in the middle ages.
Gee, Hera...you should get a hobby...
Don't worry guys, the Middle Ages were quite nice. Sure they still hadn't invented the deodorant or toothpaste, but all was well. Soon enough, Europe got out of the Early Middle Ages and on to the Late Middle Ages. That was the time you all knew and dreamt of when you were little: chivalry, knights, lovely, pure and virgin maidens and jousting matches where you would be greeted by the crowd singing Queen's "We will rock you".
I don't know what the Hell they're talking about there, must be medievalese or something. Chivalry was the fad and knights were the new black. If you were a knight you were the most badass motherfucker in town. Lots of weapons, armor and women. Although you'd look really silly...
Anyhow, imagine that...what time of wonder and wonderous happenings! If you think people today are naive and believe in everything, well, you should've seen then.
Silly, but badass.
Anyhow, imagine that...what time of wonder and wonderous happenings! If you think people today are naive and believe in everything, well, you should've seen then.
Apparently, the salamander was a magical animal. Not only it could come out of fires without being set ablaze, or so the legend goes, but also put off fires just by touching them with its skin. Some people suggested that if your house was burning you could easily bring a salamander to help you out. One wonders how could a tiny amphibian help you out in the battle against the fire that has just set your whole fuckin' house on fire. This is our artist's rendition:
"Yep, It's burning alright."Therefore we salute the salamanders who bravely died just to put off a fire for some unwashed medieval douche-bag.
Anyhow, the salamander business was booming and people from all over the world were soon crowding to buy the fabled "salamander fur". I kid you not, my dear friends. Apparently, the fabled salamander had a fur which was absolutely great as an insulating material against fires. Wouldn't you want to buy something like that? Of course you would! And you can also find it today in large amounts, it's exactly the same thing and it's called asbestos.
Although, you can still call it "salamander fur"....only if it strikes you fancy.
Although, you can still call it "salamander fur"....only if it strikes you fancy.
Everyone was busy with some magical, spiritual, occult or esotherical stuff those days. Honestly, you couldn't pass as a scientist without knowing some mathematics, physics, anatomy (biology in general), how to banish demons, create horoscopes and being able to make prophecies. As you can see, the term "scientist" was used with a very loose meaning. Some people chose alchemy (the precursor of chemistry, in case you were born yesterday) because, obviously, it was the coolest shit around. By studying alchemy you could eventually (as in never ever) create the elusive Philosopher's Stone which was some kind of catalyst that could transform any metal into gold and give you immortality if you somehow drank it. The only living person who is said to had discovered the Philosopher's stone was Nicholas Flamel. We can't actually verify that, since he is very much and genuinely dead.
This picture tells you how to create the perfect farts.
Sure, there were lots of "manuals" to "help" you create the fabled stone, but unfortunately they were harder to understand than a woman's period or a man's fascination for a round ball who's being kicked all the way through a field. I mean, what the fuck is this? They didn't really use words like a normal literate human being, instead having some cryptic fucked-up drawings such as: a desert full of beautiful fountains invaded by snakes or a bush on top of a mountain, sorrounded by griffins and dragons. And when they finally did decide to use words, things like "Black Crow" would come up and totally fuck you up. What was the "black crow"? Lead.
Naturally, lots of people bought The Young Alchemist's Kit and didn't do jackshit with them.
From then on, everything went kind of downhill thanks to...oh, come on!!! How the fuck do you expect me not to pick up on the fucking Church when they always come back to fuck everything up?!?!
So it turns out that what was normal for a few hundred years until then was suddenly not too normal, because, let's be serious....how can something be good if it can't bring them any acolytes? Thus, the Church, started fucking up people.
That was the least of their concerns.Apparently, for the past few hundred years that tiny jew sect that was promising salvation and shit like that grew up to be the strongest institution for almost two thousand years. Yeah, forgot to mention that, they kind of turned into a super-power.
And because everything was all too peaceful, the Empi...aaa....Church thought to themselves that a new and original concept was in order: crusades. The fight for faith, justice, but especially money, territories and power. People were kind of stupid back then, as we can see, since they were being fooled like this......................same goes for the XXIst century. Unfortunately for them, most of the time they were fighting with the muslims, which meant defeat on a regular basis. Even if you were a king, you couldn't really contradict the Church. Really. Because if you would, they'd excommunicate the shit out of you, which meant that they would deprive or suspend your membership from the local religious community club. Which was bad back then, really bad....kings were real pussies, it seems.
Also, remember the part with the alchemists and banishing demons and stuff? Well, the holy people also thought that it would be a good sport to hunt some witches and everyone that had to do with the occult.
Sure, it didn't happen right away. Everything started in the second half of the XVth century (which means the Late Middle Ages, the last part of the Middle Ages) and this sport was so popular that two witch hunters wrote and published in 1486 a book called "Malleus Maleficarum" (or "The Hammer of Witches"), basically a guide for identifying, judging and punishing witches. It was quite a bestseller, being read by anyone who had the superpower of being literate. Soon enough, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger (the two douche-bags that wrote the book) convinced everyone (including the Pope) that witches were working for Satan & co. and should be destroyed. Especially if they were hags and butt-ugly. One of the most rational and greatest methods of seeing if one person was a witch or not was to tie her with a string and throw her into the water. If she floated, she was a witch, if she went to the bottom (and possibly drowned), she was innocent. As rational as your dog flirting with your sofa...
...or this.
The problem is they weren't chasing only witches, but also their pets...because, hey! Didn't Jesus teach us to kill people, their kids and pets? No.....that was the Old Testament God, but still......so thousands of toads, frogs, horses and even cute and cuddly kittens were being killed with their masters because they too could be acolytes of the Devil. Come on! How can a cute kitty be an acolyte of the Devil?!
They can't.....right?....
Of course, not all of them believed that...but what could you do back then? And since lots of supposed witches weren't quite keen on confessing that they were witches, the inquisitors would use marvelous gizmos such as:
Judas Cradle
Yes, it was a chair and it was doing exactly what you think it would. Normally, I'd enjoy terrifying and giving you nightmares, but I'm not in the mood right now so you'll have to guess for yourselves what exact method was used, Doppelganger will spare you of any gross stuff....
Hey, did I tell you about the rat torturing method? It was really nice:
A cheap and effective way to torture someone was with the use of rats. There were many variants, but the most common was to force a rat through a victim's body (usually the intestines) as a way to escape. This was done as follows:
1. The victim was completely restrained and tied to the ground or any horizontal surface.
2. A rat was then placed on a person's stomach covered by a metallic container.
3. As the container was gradually heated, the rat began to look for a way out - through the victim's body.
1. The victim was completely restrained and tied to the ground or any horizontal surface.
2. A rat was then placed on a person's stomach covered by a metallic container.
3. As the container was gradually heated, the rat began to look for a way out - through the victim's body.
Digging a hole usually took a few hours of agonizing pain for the victim. This almost always resulted in death.
Yeah, they were really creative back then. I mean, look at Judas Cradle: it would've rocked your world. Get it? Cradle? Rock? Rock your world? I crack myself up.
The apogee of torture
We also had the Black Plague, who decimated about 1/3 of Europe's population, which is quite good considering that among those people who died were also bishops, executioners, torturers, etc. As you can see, only 1/3 of Europe's population died because the rest of 2/3 didn't. There were doctors who were trying to cure people that had been infected...by dressing themselves in silly outfits and wearing stupid masks in the hope of scaring the shit out of the plague.
"Fuck you, plague!"
Amazingly, they didn't die! Well...at least not always...and they also managed to cure some of their patients. So...yeah....hooray for humanity....
Let's make a recap: crusades, witch hunts, torture, plague. It seemed the people were in the need of a hero, someone who can take their pain away, help the innocent, punish the guilty and save the day. This sounds like another Hercules or Xena episode set up...
Sorry Xena, your courage didn't change shit...
No, unfortunately no one came and things kept going this way until they got bored, You might be tempted to say that Joan of Arc was that hero, but no. She just helped the king of France capture new territories and defeat the English. That's kind of it, not that much of a hero.
But let's not be too pessimistic. A lot of good things happened in the Middle Ages too:
*The earliest written record of a windmill is from Yorkshire, England, dated 1185. This would soon be essential to Don Quijote, because otherwise he would've just been a madman instead of an insanely batshit badman.
*Paper manufacture began in Italy around 1270. Finally...
*Eyeglasses were invented in Italy in the late 1280s.
*Leonardo of Pisa introduces Arabic numerals to Europe with his book "Liber Abaci" in 1202.
*The West's oldest known depiction of a stern-mounted rudder can be found on church carvings dating to around 1180. I don't know what the Hell is this, but it sounds cool.
In the meantime, in Japan, sick of all the opression, the peasants thought of uprising against their leaders. What we got is described today by the term "ninja". Yes, being only peasants and not having the necessary training to fight like they should, the peasants invented the (now) martial art also known as "ninjutsu". Along with that, not having specialized weapons like the soldiers did and obviously unaware of the fact that they could had gone mining for iron and stuff like that and build their very own forge in the backyard (although it would've been terribly impractical and fucking ridiculous), they invented a series of weapons from ordinary household items. Thus, the nunchaku and shurikens were born (and several other weapons). What can we say? They had some sweet-ass battles back then:
In the meantime, in Japan, sick of all the opression, the peasants thought of uprising against their leaders. What we got is described today by the term "ninja". Yes, being only peasants and not having the necessary training to fight like they should, the peasants invented the (now) martial art also known as "ninjutsu". Along with that, not having specialized weapons like the soldiers did and obviously unaware of the fact that they could had gone mining for iron and stuff like that and build their very own forge in the backyard (although it would've been terribly impractical and fucking ridiculous), they invented a series of weapons from ordinary household items. Thus, the nunchaku and shurikens were born (and several other weapons). What can we say? They had some sweet-ass battles back then:
So....guess it was nice...in the Middle Ages I mean....especially if you were living underground, free from all this hassle. But alas, the Middle Ages too came to and end in 1499 A.D. and made way for the coming of the Renaissance, a new period of stupid ideas (among remarcable ones), Church abuse, possible evolution, etc. Yey.
