Medieval Humor Ep. 1: Farting Christmas Songs

Has anyone ever told you you're funny? Do you enjoy cracking jokes at parties? Think of yourself as the court jester of Arizona State University? In medieval England, fools and minstrels had to do a lot more to get laughs than insult Nickelback and prank the RA. Back in the day, humor was risky business.

Way more dangerous than running a brothel while your parents are on vacation. (More importantly, no pants!)

Jesters didn’t just juggle fruit and make fun of the French. Unlike a class joker, court comedians had to be good at everything, from singing to puppetry to espionage. But spying silly-men is a whole other tankard of worms (I’ll just say some fools were up close and personal with the most powerful people in ye olde merry England, and no one’s going to suspect a bawdy buffoon of eavesdropping). Infiltrating activities aside, the job description was a bit scarier than that of your run-of-the-mill party clown.

Guess what, kids?? I could die today!

Just like your little brother, medieval people found injury and poop HILARIOUS.  One super fun party (or "pleasant guise") game a jester might have to perform entailed removing his trousers, basting his Little John with honey, and dancing around while a large and hopefully post-lunchtime bear licked the sweet bee-stickiness off his not-so-privates. LOL, amirite?!

This honey pot is hiding my shame.

So yeah, being a fool was pretty dangerous. But mad humor often resulted in, as Catherine of Aragon used to say, "mad dough."* The most lucrative and ludicrous jesting job definitely goes to my dream BFF, Roland the Farter. King Henry II employed the talented Roland (alternately "Berthold le Fartere"), a fool whose official job description as inscribed in the royal records included performing “a jump, a whistle, and a fart” every year at Christmastime. In return, Roland received a fat parcel of land. Are chu kidding me?! I want that job!

I should lend my copy to ol' Henry deuce. More like Henry drops-a-deuce.

I know you like to think your shit don't stink, but roses really smell like 30 acres of land for farting christmas songs.

Gassily Yours,
The Rad Historian

*She totally did, I swear. This blog is 100% historically accurate.**
**If 100% means 97% historically accurate and 3% historically awesome.

The First Rave: The French Dancing Plague of 1518

Ever felt like you just couldn't stop dancing? Your favorite song's playing and you've gotta leave but you just can't bring yourself to stop flailing your arms with glee? Well, MAN UP. Because it could be way, way worse. In Strasbourg, France in 1518, the people came down with a serious-ass illness: The Dancing Plague.

And I thought my weird Uncle Frank was the only one who couldn't stop dancing at inappropriate times.

It began when one woman started to dance uncontrollably in the street for days. After a week she was joined by a crowd of more than 30, and within a month there were 400 people who just couldn't stop boogying 24/7. Awesomely, local physicians prescribed... wait for it... more dancing as the cure.

I've got a fever and the only prescription is more frenzied hysterical dancing!

Town officials opened two guild halls and a market for people to dance in, built a stage, and even hired musicians to accompany the madness so the afflicted could dance it all out and cure themselves sooner.

There are more dehydrated freaks in this guild hall than the rave tent at Coachella!

The french nutcases danced so hard that several even died from heart attacks and exhaustion. No one's sure what caused the dancing bug, but one historian suggests mass psychogenic illness (pretty much mass hysteria) as a result of excessively hard times in the region-- horrible and unusual weather, a sinking economic situation, disease, lack of food, spiritual maladies... sounds a bit familiar, actually. Moral of the story? If you notice people dancing in the street, blame the Tea Party.

We're going to drive you crazy. No seriously. Did I just see your leg twitch? Did you just shake your hips? YOU'RE GOING TO DIE.

Happy April Fool's Day! Shockingly, this story is 100% real. Remember kids, when an out-of-breath dude with a goatee and wide-leg black pants asks you if you want a light show, just say no. You could die.

-The Rad Historian

Lunacy in Gotham: Pranking King John

If I could go back in time, I know exactly where and when I would want to Bill-and-Ted myself to: the village of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, in the year 1200, to be present for one of the craziest days in history (and possibly the origin of April Fool's Day)!

"Ted, we are most definitely not in Sam Dimas anymore."

In 1200, King John was planning on making a trip to Nottingham, and planned to pass through the village of Gotham on the way. This would have made Gotham part of the king's highway, subjecting the villagers to new taxation. But the people of Gotham were not down.

"More taxes?!? Fuck you!"

Medieval peasants were far from ignorant of the law; in fact they were persecuted so often that they became minor legal experts in their own right. So when the king's messengers arrived in Gotham to assess its fitness for to the king's arrival, the entire village pretended to be crazy.

"Is anybody home? No? Okay, I'll try the landline."

Legend has it the villagers dressed like maniacs with pots on their heads and spoons in their belts, attempted to trap birds in roofless birdcages, tried to drown eels, painted green apples red, tried to fish the moon out of a pond with a rake, rolled cheeses downhill to make them round, etc etc. Madness at the time was believed to be contagious, so upon perceiving a town full of raving lunatics, the king's messengers swiftly found an alternate royal route to Nottingham.

Gothamites in full bonkers-swing.

Rotund ukulele playing crazy in a pink tunic with a cauldron on his head-- me in a past life (or me with hay stuffed in my shirt, having successfully travelled back in time!!!)

Can you imagine how much fun it must have been, essentially pranking the motherfucking king of England? And it worked!

"Rejoice, freaks!"

The lesson? I have no fucking idea. I only wish acting crazy still exempted you from paying taxes... One can dream.

-The Rad Historian

Welcome to Rad History!

     The great Wilhelm von Humboldt once wrote, "The historian's task is to present what actually happened." Don't mind if I do, Willie! Too often history is presented as a series of dry, "important," facts and events. But it doesn't have to be that way. History is fucking crazy. And the most interesting stuff is often what gets left out in the retelling. Perhaps these stories are not deemed serious enough to warrant being included in textbooks. But if they were, people would care a lot more about the past! When I learn about crazy shit that happened way back when, I have a much easier time remembering the more "dry" stuff. Often, the crazy shit enhances my understanding in such a way that the dry stuff isn't even dry anymore-- it's soaked in "What the Fuck!?" In essence, that's what I want to share with y'all. I want to help spice up the past. I want to show you how World War I was started by a sandwich. I want to tell you about giant Egyptian penis sculptures. I want to tell you how to get to 2nd base with your midwife. I want to soak history in WTF.

Here, an image of Don Quixote and his twin brother in witch hats, trading glow-in-the-dark bedsheets for a bucket of turds and a traditional giant flaming pre-sliced peach from some hipsters.

Rad History is going to be a strangely curated collection of factual historical tidbits. Prepare to be amazed, amused, and slightly uncomfortable. If you have anything you want to contribute, please email it to TheRadHistorian@gmail.com, and if it's weird enough I'll share it here!

-The Rad Historian