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In One Odd Tale, King Pippin III Of The Franks Fought A Demon While He Was In A Bath

By
thehistorianshut
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In the mid 880s, a monk of St. Gall known as Notker the Stammerer wrote an unfinished text called The Deeds of Charlemagne. Most of the first book of the text consisted of an odd collection of tales concerning Charlemagne and the bishops in his lands. The second book of the text transitioned more into Charlemagne’s foreign policy and often digressed into other stories about the great king’s predecessors and successors. Although Notker the Stammerer was writing a biography, his writing style can be frustrating to people seeking historical information on the life of Charlemagne. Notker often neglected to mention names, locations and dates, making many of the tales collected in his text virtually impossibly to validate. In addition to this, many of Notker’s stories were fantastical in nature, featuring monsters, demons and overt, flashy divine interventions, making them unpalatable to most modern historical narratives. Nevertheless, the odd tales of Notker the Stammerer can give a glimpse into the mind of a 9th-century monk and have value, even if only for the sake of entertainment.

In one of the digressions away from the main subject of his text, Notker the Stammerer began commenting on Pippin III (r. 751-768), the first Carolingian king of the Franks and the father of Charlemagne. After briefly recounting how Pippin attacked the Lombards on the behest of the Pope, Notker transitioned into telling a few select stories about the king.

One of the tales was about a supernatural battle between Pippin and a demonic creature. The alleged event took place at an unknown date when King Pippin was readying himself for a bath in a natural hot spring located in the city of Aachen. The king sent his chamberlain and guards to assure that the water was clean and, when the purity of the water was confirmed, the king had the troops set up a perimeter around the hot spring to keep anyone from disturbing his bath.

Eager to enter the hot waters, Pippin began stripping off layers of clothing. He had taken off everything except a linen gown and slippers when something caught his eye. It was a humanoid shape, a dark mass that resided somewhere between the corporeal and spirit realms.

The demonic creature, or “the old enemy” as Notker called it, suddenly attacked Pippin. Using the sign of the cross, Pippin was said to have been able to stun the demon, buying himself enough time to draw his sword. Pippin then stabbed at the dark entity, driving his sword through the shadowy mass, not stopping until his blade was lodged deep in the ground. The wound seemingly killed or banished the creature, causing it to dissolve into a pool of blood and slime that polluted the hot spring. In an odd end to the tale, Notker the Stammerer wrote that King Pippin III merely waited for the current of the spring to carry away the dark grime and, when the water was once again clean, he nonchalantly took his bath.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (cropped and modified Pippin III painted by Louis-Félix Amiel (1802–1864), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Source:

  • Two Lives of Charlemagne, by Einhard and Notker the Stammer, translated by David Ganz. New York: Penguin Classics, 2008.

Sima Qian

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)

“Good advice is hard on the ears, but it profits the conduct just as good medicine, though bitter in the mouth, cures the sickness.”

  • From the Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji 55) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

The Renaissance Genius Michelangelo Sculpted This Unusual Moses. Did You Notice Moses Has Horns?

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

The aging warrior Pope, Julius II (1443-1513), was nearing the end of his life and realized he needed a tomb prepared for a pontiff of his stature. Wanting only the best for his final resting place, Julius II contracted the master artist, Michelangelo, to outfit his envisioned crypt with no less than forty marble statues. Michelangelo accepted the contract, put away his paintbrushes in favor of a hammer and chisel and began his work on the first statue, The Moses. Unfortunately for Michelangelo, at some point during the production of The Moses, the Papacy informed him that the other thirty-nine statues were no longer affordable. The Moses, which originally was supposed to be elevated as a centerpiece among other statues, had to be reworked to be viewed at close proximity. Michelangelo had already made the body of Moses longer, and the anatomical details deeper, meant to be viewed from a distance. Yet, despite the setbacks, Michelangelo was able to finish The Moses anywhere from 1513 to 1515. Even today, the statue still astounds viewers with its grasp and portrayal of emotion. It is housed in San Pietro in Vicoli, a church in Rome.

Michelangelo’s The Moses, however, tells a stranger story. This peculiar tale begins around 405, when Saint Jerome finished his Latin translation of the Bible, called the Vulgate. While the translation was a great achievement that remained the church’s translation of choice for centuries, it had some flaws. In particular, the problem that Michelangelo later sculpted was Jerome’s mistake in translating the Hebrew word, “Keren.” The word could mean either “radiated light” or “grew horns.” Unfortunately, Jerome chose the second option, and worse, he used the phrase to describe Moses, stating that Moses had horns on his head.

More than a thousand years later, Michelangelo used this description of Moses as a reference in making The Moses. That is why, to this day, The Moses features two small horns poking through the curls of marble hair.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

 

Sources:

Geoffrey Chaucer

By
thehistorianshut
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Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400)

“There came a privy thief, they call him Death
Who kills us all round here, and in a breath
He speared him through the heart, he never stirred.
And then Death went his way without a word.”

  • From The Canterbury Tales (The Pardoner’s Tale) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated into modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics, 2003).

The Otter’s Ransom—A Norse Tale Of A Dragon And Cursed Gold

By
thehistorianshut
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A certain tale from Norse mythology, which has come to be known as “The Otter’s Ransom,” has had a great deal of influence on writers of the fantasy genre. One such visionary who drew inspiration from the tale was J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. “The Otter’s Ransom” was featured in the 13th-century Saga of the Volsungs, a book about the Volsung family, with the most notable sections of the text being about Sigurd the dragon-slayer. Snorri Sturluson (c. 1179-1241), the greatest of the medieval Icelandic scholars, also recorded the tale in his own work, The Prose Edda.

“The Otter’s Ransom” centers around the family of a mysterious magician named Hreidmar. He was skilled in the use of magic and also possessed a powerful helmet, called the Helm of Dread or the Helm of Terror. Anyone whose eyes viewed that magical helm found themselves stunned with uncontrollable fear. Hreidmar had three sons, all of whom were extremely gifted in their own way. One son was named Regin. He was a master craftsman who could make useful items out of any material available and he was also an excellent jeweler with gold and silver. The second son was Otr, a shape shifter of great talent. In keeping with his name, he enjoyed transforming into an otter, a shape in which he excelled at fishing. A dutiful son, Otr would often eat alone while in the shape of an otter, but would always bring fish back for his father. The last son was Fafnir, a man of great stature and even greater strength. This was made even more deadly by his incredibly fierce nature. Hreidmar and his three talented sons lived together in a farmhouse, not far from a waterfall.

The nearby waterfall was called Andvari’s Fall, named after a dwarf that lived in that area. Like Otr, the dwarf, Andvari, was also a shape shifter, and he liked to spend his time transformed into the shape of a pike fish. Andvari’s Fall was Otr’s favorite fishing spot, and although he and the dwarf were competing for the same game, they seemed to coexist well.

One day, while the otter-shaped Otr was eating a freshly caught salmon on the bank of the river, the Norse deities, Odin, Loki and Hoenir wandered up to Andvari’s Fall. Loki was, himself, a masterful shape shifter, so he may have known that all was not as it seemed, yet he could not pass up the chance to obtain a luxurious otter pelt. Therefore, Loki picked up a hefty rock and, with a vicious throw, struck a killing blow across Otr’s head. In The Saga of the Volsungs, Loki immediately skinned the otter. Snorri Sturluson, however, wrote that the gods merely took the dead otter and salmon with them, whole, and continued on their journey.

The gods then wandered to the nearest house, which unfortunately happened to be the home of Hreidmar. The magician and his two remaining sons welcomed the deities into their home, but once they saw the remains of the otter, they flew into a rage. Using Hreidmar’s powerful magic and the skills of his living sons, the family impressively managed to detain the gods. The otter, if it had not been skinned earlier, was now skinned and the pelt was fashioned into a bag. As payment for the wrongful death, Hreidmar demanded that the gods fill the inside of the bag with gold, and, once that was done, to also heap enough gold around the outside of the bag so that no part of the pelt was left visible. The trapped Norse deities agreed to the payment and Odin sent Loki out to acquire the treasure.

Luckily for Loki, he knew where he could find a dwarf, a mythical creature that was known for hoarding treasures. With a net in hand, Loki traveled back to Andvari’s Fall, where he fished out the shape shifting dwarf. The god then offered to release Andvari for all of the dwarf’s wealth. Andvari, understandably, accepted the proposal and handed over an enormous quantity of treasure. Most notably, the dwarf gave Loki Andvaranaut (“Andvari’s Gift”), a remarkable gold ring. Before the god left, Andvari warned Loki that all of the gold was cursed, but the ring, especially, would bring about the death of whoever possessed it.

Not caring about the warning, Loki took the treasure and the ring back to Hreidmar’s farmhouse. Odin immediately took a liking to the gold ring and held onto it as the rest of the gold was placed in and around the otter skin. When the gods were done, the otter pelt was thoroughly covered in gold. Yet, when Hreidmar inspected the pile, he protested that a single whisker was still visible, sticking up through the treasure. Unfortunately for Hriedmar’s family, Odin admitted that the agreement had not been met, so he placed the cursed ring, Andvaranaut, over the whisker, covering the pelt completely. That done, Hreidmar recognized that the deal was fulfilled and let the gods go free. From that point on, gold received that nickname, “the otter’s ransom.” As the deities left, Loki mischievously repeated the dwarf’s warning, claiming that the possessor of the gold would meet with a violent end.

It did not take long for the ring’s dark power to take hold. Regin and Fafnir soon demanded that Hriedmar share the treasure. When the father refused his sons’ request, he was quickly murdered. The ring also drove a wedge between the brothers. Fafnir decided to keep all of the wealth for himself. After grabbing his father’s magical Helm of Dread, Fafnir stole the treasure and hid himself in a wilderness lair called Gnita-Heath. There, the cursed treasure transformed Fafnir into a monstrous serpent or dragon.

With no family or wealth, Regin went on to serve as an honored blacksmith to a king in Denmark. One day, the son of the Danish king brought back a widowed, pregnant, woman from the lands of the Volsungs. Not long after she arrived in Denmark, she gave birth to the legendary Sigurd, and Regin took him in as his foster son. After Sigurd had grown into a great warrior, Regin told him about the dragon, Fafnir, and the great hoard of treasure that he was guarding at Gnita-Heath. Using his incredible talents in craftsmanship, Regin forged a blade for Sigurd, called Gram. The sword was made from the shattered pieces of a blade given to the Volsung family long ago by Odin, himself. Regin put the broken pieces back together, and in Sigurd’s hands, the blade was sturdy and sharp enough to cut through an anvil without denting, bending or breaking the weapon.

Armed with his sword, Gram, Sigurd surprised Fafnir and stabbed the serpent through the belly. After the creature died, Sigurd cut out Fafnir’s heart and ate a piece of it, which gave him supernatural wisdom and the ability to understand the chattering of birds. After tasting the blood of Fafnir, Sigurd became suspicious of his foster-father, Regin, who had followed him to Gnita-Heath. Listening to the warnings of the birds, Sigurd slew Regin, killing the last remaining son of Hreidmar.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Sigurd and Fafnir, c. 1906, painted by Hermann Hendrich (–1931), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

  • The Saga of the Volsungs, by an anonymous 13th-century Icelander, translated by Jesse L. Byock. New York: Penguin Classics, 1990, 1999.
  • The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson, translated by Jesse Byock. New York: Penguin Books, 2005.

Cassius Dio

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Cassius Dio (c. 163-235)

“It is human beings, not wild beasts whom you govern, and you will only make them truly well disposed towards you if you can convince them by every means and on every occasion consistently that you will wrong no man, either deliberately or unwillingly.”

  • From Cassius Dio’s The Roman History (Book 55, chapter 19), translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Penguin Classics, 1987).

The Devil Has A Liking For Feathered Hats

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Many people have a preconceived notion of the devil as a red beast with horns, or a hairy creature with a goat’s head. Some may even believe the devil looks like Voldemort from Harry Potter. While these are all fitting description of the prince of darkness, no description of the devil is as stylish and hip as the devil sighted in Baroque Germany. These depictions of the devil wearing the finest clothes and sporting the sharpest hats were prevalent in the late 16th century and early 17th century.

The devil’s appearance gained him the name “Federle” or “Federlin,” meaning “little feather,” as the lord of the fallen always wore a hat adorned with a feather. The following descriptions of the devil come from interrogations of accused witches documented in Lyndal Roper’s book, Witch Craze. The devil was a smooth talker, promising marriage and loyalty to the women he targeted, then demanding diabolical obedience after they were seduced. Common motifs in the accounts of the devil from this period included impersonation of love interests, the appearance of goat’s feet (after the devil revealed himself), having a cold ‘member,’ and last but not least, flatulence. Yet, the devil’s choice of clothing was the most consistent recurrence among the accounts.

If clothing makes the man, the devil was a man of substance. In 1586, Ursula Bayer told of her encounter with the devil wearing “black clothes, with a black satin hat, black feather on it….” Barbara Weis confessed in 1590 that the devil “came in the form of a craftsman, dressed in black clothes, a feather on his hat, and with a cloven foot.” The 1602 account from Barbara Herpolt claims the devil looked “like a servant man, a red face and a red beret, smooth trousers and stockings, a hat with black and white feathers….” In 1617, the devil added more color to his clothing. Margaret Schreyer, in her 1617 testimony, claimed that the devil appeared to her “in red clothes and a black hat.” The Würzburg trials added green to the devil’s wardrobe. The devil was described as “a beautiful young man with a black beard, red clothing, green stockings and black hat, with a red feather upon it.” Barbara Schluchter also claimed to have seen the devil in 1617, “he had a green tunic, a high hat and a feather.” Even men had to be wary of women in feathered hats. Conrad Schreyer, an accused male witch from Marchtal, claimed to have been seduced by the devil in the form of a black-clad woman wearing a hat with feathers. In total, the accounts from Lyndal Roper’s Witch Craze that were perused for this article contained five instances of the devil wearing black clothing, four instances of a black hat, two depictions of green clothing, two accounts of red clothing, and a unique occurrence of a red hat. The feather was always present, though its color and quantity varied.

So, next time you encounter a devilishly good-looking person wearing fine tailored clothing and a hat with a feather, beware, it may be the devil. The colors black, red and green are to be especially suspected.  Beware the Lucifer in Ralph Lauren and the dark prince in Prada.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

This article was originally published on April 7, 2016, but has been edited since that date.

Picture Attribution: (“The Devil as the Witch’s Lover,” woodcut c. 1490, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Source:

  • Lyndal Roper. Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Miyamoto Musashi

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1584-1645)

“An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.”

  • From Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, (Lord Majesty Productions, 2005 edition).

In the Reign of Nero, Romans Rioted In An Attempt To Save The Lives Of Condemned Slaves

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Between his descriptions of wars and imperial intrigues, the Roman historian, Tacitus (c. 56-117+), enjoyed filling his pages with various crimes that occurred within the Roman Empire. He stated several reasons why he recorded the crimes. For one, the accounts reinforced his idea that Rome had become corrupt and morally degraded in the time period in which he was writing about. On the other hand, he believed that seemingly trivial and insignificant events, such as criminal trials, could influence the direction of history, as a whole, and therefore were worth examining. It must also not be forgotten that Tacitus was one of the most accomplished orators of his day, so he must have known that the scandal and drama of great crime stories would be of great entertainment value to his readers.

While writing about events in the last decade of Emperor Nero’s life, Tacitus took some time to write about an interesting crime that involved murder and slavery. The event in question took place in Rome around the year 61 or 62, not long after Boudicca led her destructive, but ultimately unsuccessful, rebellion in Britain. The incident that occurred that year would ultimately rile up the masses and force Emperor Nero to take a side in a debate between law and morality.

According to Tacitus, a City Prefect named Lucius Pedanius Secundus owned a large household of slaves. This Pedanius, as Tacitus referred to him, somehow inspired the bitterest kind of hate in one of his many slaves. The historian mentioned two theories as to how this occurred. In the first account, Pedanius refused to let one of his slaves buy freedom, even though he had promised to release the slave for a predetermined price, which the slave had obtained. In the alternate version, Pedanius and the unnamed slave were both competing for the very same person’s affection and the slave was infuriated because he was losing the competition of courtship. Whatever the cause of the animosity, the slave eventually murdered Lucius Pedanius Secundus.

According to Roman law, not only the murderer, but also every single slave in Pedanius’ large household, would be held responsible for the crime. Therefore, all of Pedanius’ slaves (young and old, men and women) were condemned to execution. This verdict, sentencing to death many innocents, caused rioting to break out in the streets of Rome. The angry citizens were said to have had enough strength to besiege the senate-house, itself. Faced with the angry mob, the senators quickly began to debate whether the slaves should be shown mercy or if the ancient custom of execution should be upheld. When the senators ultimately decided in favor of upholding the executions, the rioters picked up stones or any other available weapons and put themselves between the slaves and the authorities.

With an armed conflict seemingly imminent in the streets, Emperor Nero sent out his troops to clear the roadways and to ensure that the executions were carried out. Caught up in the bloodlust, some of the more extreme senators also proposed that freed former slaves of Pedanius should also be expelled from Italy. Nero, however, rejected this second proposal.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

  • The Annals of Imperial Rome (Chapter 10) by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996.

Benjamin Franklin

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Benjamin Franklin (c. 1706-1790)

“Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.”

  • From Poor Richard’s Almanac by Benjamin Franklin (Seven Treasures Publications, 2008).

 

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