The Comfort of Cover.

A depiction of a 15th-century bed. Public Domain.

Blankets, sheets. Most people have trouble sleeping without them. I have a love/hate thing for them outside of the winter months, when I can’t pile enough of them on.

[…] Blankets are common, but not universal, to humans during sleep, at least in the modern day. But historically, the effort involved in weaving large sheets put blankets at much too high a price point for most to afford. From the linen bedsheets of Egypt around 3500 B.C. to wool sheets during the Roman empire straight through to cotton in medieval Europe, bed coverings were for the wealthy.

By the Early Modern period in Europe, which followed the Middle Ages, production had increased enough so that more middle-class people could afford bedding, though not easily. “The bed, throughout Western Europe at this time, was the most expensive item in the house,” says Roger Ekirch, a historian at Virginia Tech who has written extensively about sleep. “It was the first major item that a newly married couple, if they had the wherewithal, would invest in.” The bed and bedding could make up about a third of the total value of an entire household’s possessions, which explains why bedsheets frequently showed up in wills.

In place of blankets and sheets, other sources of heat were common at night, usually from multiple people sharing a bed, or often livestock.

You can read all about this fascinating need shared by most people, and the reasons why, at Atlas Obscura.

The Sydney Morning Herald Archive.

Millions of photos, documenting Australian life from the 1920s to the 1990s, were stranded and lost in Arkansas, of all places. A bank ended up owning them, but had no interest. Fortunately Daniel Miller, a gallery owner, bought them, and the process of sorting and trying to repatriate them is ongoing. You can read all about this project, see more, and be able to help with the repatriation at smhphotographs.

A Revenge Spectacle.

“Pope Formosus and Stephen VII” – Jean-Paul Laurens’ depiction of the Cadaver Synod in 1870.

Revenge, it’s a popular topic in literature. Personally, I have no use for it, I tend towards the “the best revenge is living well” side of things. I don’t much care for giving nasty people rent free space in my head, so I don’t concern myself with them. Pettiness can eat you alive if you let it. All that said, one of the most spectacular incidences involving revenge was the Cadaver Synod in 897. There were various reasons for this spectacle, the most likely being politics, what else?

“And thereafter Stephan put Pope Formosus out of his tomb, and placed him in the Apostolic throne, and a deacon was delegated to answer for him, and his apostolic vestment was stripped off, and dragged across the basilica; and blood was flowing from his mouth, and he was thrown into the river.” ~ the Annales Alamannici describing the events in Rome for the year 897.

[…]

On April 4, 896, Formosus died and was buried in a Roman church. His immediate successor was Boniface VI, but he only last 15 days on the Papal throne before dying of gout. He would be replaced by Stephen VI, a longtime rival of Formosus.

As this was happening, Emperor Arnulf suffered a stroke and returned home north across the Alps. His health would never recover and he died on 8 December 899.

In January of 897, Pope Stephen VI ordered that the tomb of Formosus be opened up and his body exhumed. He wanted the former Pope put on trial, allegedly for supporting King Arnulf in becoming Emperor, and for coveting the Papacy years before. He was charged with breaking canon law, as well as of perjury, and of illegally serving as a bishop. Even if Formosus had been dead for several months, Stephen was eager to have his revenge on his corpse.

The decaying body was propped up onto a throne, and a trial was held with Pope Stephen acting as prosecutor. Meanwhile a young deacon was given the responsibility of defending Formosus, while a stunned audience watched the gross spectacle. According to various sources, Pope Stephen shouted at his dead predecessor, demanding he answer his charges. One chronicler, Liutprand of Cremona, noted that Stephen asked, “When you were bishop of Porto, why did you usurp the universal Roman See in such a spirit of ambition?”

The macabre and bizarre spectacle would soon reach its foregone conclusion – Formosus was found guilty. His body was stripped of its Papal vestments and three of his fingers were cut off from his right hand – those that he used to bless people. Finally, the body was tossed in the Tiber River, however the next day it was recovered by some monks and secretly buried in a monastery.

I can’t help but wonder if this mess actually made Stephen feel better. It’s difficult for me to imagine any satisfaction in all this, after all, Formosus was well beyond answering any charges or having any cares at all. Seems Stephen mostly wanted an excuse to desecrate a corpse, and felt this ‘trial’ justified his doing so. Of course, there was also the attempt to desecrate the memory of Formosus, but in the end, that resulted in a spectacular backfire. The most memorable thing about Stephen was his putting a corpse on trial, so I think Formosus won this one in the end.

You can read all about the surrounding political situation at Medievalists.

Zodiac Man.

Most people are at least somewhat familiar with the Medieval Wound Man, but I expect Zodiac Man is not as well known. Physicians had to consult a lunar calendar, to make sure they didn’t bleed someone in the wrong part of the body, as it was thought the zodiac also ruled over the physical body.

Zodiac Man, 1522 Courtesy of The New York Academy of Medicine Library.

In medieval Europe, bleeding was thought to be the most effective cure around. Medical practitioners believed no disease could withstand a nick in the neck from a small blade, otherwise known as a fleam. Have smallpox? No problem. Epilepsy? Easy. Gout? Cured.

But there was a catch.

Before operating on a patient, medieval physicians needed to consult the stars. The success of the procedure depended on it.

A foundational tenet of medieval medicine was the connection between astrology and human anatomy. The idea—which originated in Ancient Babylonian mythology—was that humans are microcosms of the Ptolemaic universe; the human body was divided into specific regions governed by Zodiac signs, analogous to the way the Earth was divided and ruled by planets.

The moon lay at the center of this theory. The moon’s alignment with a certain constellation signaled that a Zodiac sign was active—Libra, for instance, occurred when the moon blocked out the constellation Libra. Unlike their solar counterparts, lunar signs last only two or three days, rather than an entire month. (If you’re curious, you can find your moon sign here.)

Heh, I hold no hidden mysteries. Sign is scorpio, and so is my moon sign. Guess I’m scorpions all the way down. :D

[…]

When a Zodiac sign was active, it was considered dangerous to operate on the associated body parts. Cutting into the neck during Taurus, for instance, could spell death. Because of these dangers, medieval physicians needed to pay special attention the stars.

To determine whether a Zodiac sign was active, they consulted volvelles, or rotating lunar calendars.

They then cross-referenced the active Zodiac sign with its corresponding body parts. To do this, they turned to the Zodiac Man.

The Zodiac Man is an illustration of the human body divided into twelve sections based on astrological signs. It guides physicians as to which body parts present a danger in which months. Before bleeding their patients—or performing any kind of medical operation—physicians relied on the Zodiac Man to tell them whether a body part could be safely cut.

[…]

The moon even helped physicians make diagnoses. Diseases, it was believed, appeared cyclically with the alignment of the moon and the planets. The moon’s positioning with Jupiter often signaled the presence of liver disorders, while its alignment Venus usually triggered urinary problems.

You can see a version of the Fasciculus medicinae in its entirety here, and you can determine—per the Zodiac Man—which body parts your lunar sign puts at risk here.

You can read more and see more, too, at Atlas Obscura. Never thought I’d be quite so grateful to be stuffed into an MRI as often as I am.

Frank Buttolph’s Menu Obsession.

Photo of Frank E. Buttolph, c. 1917–21 New York Public Library.

Frank Buttolph collected menus. A lot of menus.

…Buttolph’s commitment to collecting menus came, she said, from her desire to preserve early 1900s culinary history for future scholars. Confirming this, The New York Times once wrote that “she does not care two pins for the food lists on her menus, but their historic interest means everything.”

She was a meticulous collector—not only in transcribing, dating, and organizing her menus with a detailed card catalog, but also about how they should be stored. When the director of the Astor Library tried to rubber-band menus together, she pushed back out of worry that it would leave marks.

Click for full size.

Oh gods. Now I want proper mac ‘n’ cheese, and peach fritters.

Atlas Obscura has a delightful article about Ms. Buttolph and her quest to preserve dining habits, and you can see pages and pages and pages and of her collection here. Gad, what a time sink! There’s an Astor menu printed on linen! The menus are not limited to the U.S. The artwork on many of them is fascinating, especially those for dinners being held by individuals. The Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen-Amerika has a menu with gorgeous artwork, and the menu itself is handwritten.