We are in the middle of the age of information, knowledge and, why not say it, wisdom. After all, information has never been so accessible to such a broad spectrum of the population. It's like feeling like we're living in the real golden age, right?
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Although that has not stopped us from starting “strange” trends, so to speak. Does anyone remember the Kylie Jenner challenge, the cinnamon challenge or the corn challenge? Nope, these are definitely not things that can go in the same paragraph as “golden age of humanity.”
Yes, in the history of humanity there will always be curious fashions and behaviors, but it is a fact that we are much better than before. And if we look back we will see it and that is why at El Definido we prepared this short list with five freak customs from the Middle Ages, which will truly make us feel that our society has taken giant steps.
We invite you to take a look at them and take pride in the contemporary era.
1. Belladonna poison?
Beauty tricks exist for all types of people (if not, ask Kim Kardashian about her blood facial). But in the Middle Ages they did go to waste, especially in Italy. In the country of the boot, it was the latest trend in fashion to put extract of the fruit of the nightshade plant in your eyes. The reason?
Upon contact with the eyeballs, they dilate, thus giving women a more sensual appearance. Of course, the practice was related to witchcraft (which was not a serious problem until before the Inquisition) and had a very small detail: the liquid obtained from belladonna is poisonous.
2. Mrs. Pig… to the bonfire!
As time goes by, everything changes, even the concept of Justice. You only have to watch a couple of movies from the Middle Ages to realize how different the system was back then: false accusations that ended in death sentences, women murdered everywhere because they were “witches”, etc. .
Although there is something that the big screen has not shown us and that has to do with how they dealt back then with the animals that committed one misdeed or another. How did they do it? Taking them to court. In fact, the ones who seemed to have the worst reputation were the little pigs.
At that time it was common for pigs to abound in European cities. But they exhibited murderous behavior when they were around human babies, sometimes eating them. Although there are also cases of entire herds attacking and killing people. And be careful, the pigs were not the only ones: there are also cases ranging from horses to insects, who were brought before a court, tried, declared guilty and then exterminated.
3. Soccer? Now no Please
Already in medieval times there was a type of football. For this they used a ball made from anything that could be kicked, but it was generally covered in leather and filled with hair, moss, etc.
The thing is, if we now complain about the violence of some players in certain games, back then this was much worse. So much so, that in France and England there are records of cases in which the kings decided to prohibit this activity. For example, there is the case of King Edward II of England, who in 1314 banned football for being noisy and inciting the appearance of demons despised by God (probably referring to the number of insults and curses that the players said).
4. Witch's Detector 2000
Witchcraft was an issue in the Middle Ages, especially with the appearance of the Inquisition: a series of Catholic institutions that sought to combat heresies (which at the time could be interpreted as practically anything). And when it came to witchcraft, they developed a series of mechanisms to detect whether a woman was a witch or not. Among them were:
- Bible reading tests: it was believed that witches could not recite the words of the Holy Scriptures aloud, for the same reason, they were asked to do so in the middle of an accusation trial. They had to read it perfectly or else they were killed. They usually made mistakes, either because they didn't know how to read well or because they were very nervous. We don't blame them.
- Swimming tests: it was also thought that witches would be rejected by water if they were thrown into a swamp, sea, river, etc. This, since they did not have the sacrament of baptism. For the same reason, they threw them into the water and if they floated they were witches, if they sank, they were not. Of course they almost always drowned or were killed if they floated.
-The prick of death: another thing that was believed about witches was that they had “marks” on their skin where they had no sensitivity, nor could they bleed. So witch hunters were brought in to look for any evidence of this, which they did through punctures. Of course, they often used retractable needles, which obviously caused no harm. Thus, it was determined that the accused had a witch's mark, for which she was generally sentenced to die at the stake.