March 17, 2026 • 11 mins
The stories that come to us from deep in the past might be a bit dusty and incomplete, but they also have a tendancy to be incredibly curious.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
Join our Patreon for ad-free episodes!: https://www.patreon.com/grimandmild
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
One thousand years ago, in October of ten thirty two,
a man named Theophylactus did the unthinkable. He was named
pope at the age of twenty. He chose the name
Benedict the Ninth, and as far as we know, became
the youngest person to ever hold the title. Of course,
this was no coincidence. Two of his uncles had been
Pope's as well as his grand uncle and great granduncle.
(00:59):
He was part of it unofficial papal dynasty, and his
family's connections had been crucial to securing his election. Unsurprisingly,
his papacy was controversial almost from the start. He was
accused of making a mockery of Rome, living a hedonistic lifestyle.
We have no way of knowing which of these accusations
were true and which were politically motivated hearsay, but it's
(01:21):
easy enough to conclude that he was not a popular pope.
In ten thirty six, just four years later, Benedic found
himself exiled from Rome. He would return shortly after, thanks
to the support of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad the Second,
but he didn't get any more popular, and rumors of
his indiscretions only grew. In ten forty four, he was
(01:42):
exiled the second time, and this time local bishops appointed
a replacement, Pope Sylvester the Third, But Benedict the ninth
was not going to take this line down now in
his early thirties, He rallied and returned to Rome the
following year, ousting his replacement. But something had changed in
his attitude. We don't know for sure if he was
tired of being the pope or if the constant criticism
(02:04):
was finally getting to him, but by April of ten
forty five, he was considering leaving the papacy behind. Honestly,
he just wanted to get married and move on with
his life. So he did what few popes have ever
done before or since. He resigned, although not before making
a deal that would set him up comfortably. You see,
Benedict's godfather, John Gretien, was a well liked priest, Benedict
(02:26):
proposed that he would resign and allow Gratzien to take
the papacy as long as Gratien paid all the debts
that Benedict had incurred during the papal elections. His uncle consented,
paid up, and was named Pope Gregory the sixth. This
was a huge relief for the Catholic Church at large,
who immediately started to press Gregory to root out corruption
(02:46):
amongst the priesthood. However, this wasn't a solution to the
problems created by Benedict's time in the Holy See. In fact,
it only made things more complicated. A year into his retirement,
Benedict started to regret his decision. In July of ten
forty six, he came back and demanded his proper place
as Pope, much to the annoyance of his godfather, and
(03:08):
around the same time, Sylvester the Third started speaking up,
claiming that he was the rightful pope. So, for those
who are keeping track at home, by ten forty six
there were three different popes, all claiming the title in Rome,
but nobody in Rome was powerful enough to do anything
about it. That November, the new Holy Roman Emperor Henry
the third traveled to Rome to meet the pope in
(03:30):
arrange for his coronation, so he spoke to Gregory the sixth,
only to learn that that guy was part of a
trinity who were squabbling over power. He learned that Gregory
himself got the title by paying off the previous pope,
who himself was part of a dynasty of corrupt popes.
It was more than a little outrageous. On December twentieth
of ten forty six, Henry the Third gathered a council
(03:51):
of bishops to address this chaos. All three popes were
invited too, but only Sylvester the Iird and Gregory the
sixth showed up. The bishops determined that soil l vest
the third was not a proper pope, and both Benedict
and Gregory had obtained their titles illegitimately. So after the council,
Henry deposed all three popes, appointing Clement the Second in
their place to return stability to the Roman Catholic Church.
(04:14):
Which is enough to make your head spin. Right, we
have four guys now who all claimed to want to
wear the point he had, So what happened to the others? Well,
Sylvester returned to Sabina, where he served as a bishop
for the rest of his life. Gregory left for Germany
and died only a few years later. Benedict, however, never
learned his lesson. After Clement the second died, Bennedict seized
(04:35):
the papal throne yet again, resulting in the Church fully
excommunicating him. His final fate is actually unknown, but he
went down in history as the only pope to ever
sell the title and the only one to reign three
times nonconsecutively, no matter how hard he fought for it. Though,
it really seemed like he didn't take the job all
that seriously, which is perhaps even more damning than anything
(04:58):
he was accused of while he was in power. In
twenty seven hundred BC, a time so ancient its people
might seem completely alien to us today, the Egyptian architect
(05:22):
and priest Imhotep was performing a delicate operation on a
stone tablet beneath a single shaft of light. The light
shone down from a hole cut into the stone roof
above It allowed Imhotep to see every detail of his
work in the otherwise dark palace. He made subtle observations
tweaking things here and there he had his assistance record
(05:44):
everything on pages of papyrus. They needed to preserve what
they learned. After all, any knowledge gleaned was from the
creator God Ptah himself. That being said, Imhotep began his
career as a priest of Ra, the sun god. He
owed everything to Ra. Although im Hotel had been born
a commoner, this time as a priest had exposed him
to all kinds of learning. He became a master of architecture, poetry, astronomy,
(06:09):
and mathematics. His designs for a new kind of building,
to whom he called a pyramid, were much grander than
the plain rectangles the pharaohs and other important Egyptians were
buried in at the time. This had soon captured the
attention of the current pharaoh, and he immediately had Imhotep
build him a pyramid, even allowing m Hotep to carve
(06:29):
his name into one of the stones. Afterward, m Hotep
became his chief adviser, and although he was a master
of the arts, there was one art that he now
valued above all the others. Architecture no longer held any
mysteries the heavens They've all been mapped. Now he was
exploring a new frontier, an art form that wasn't just
fascinating but also necessary. In fact, im Hotep had taken
(06:53):
to calling it the necessary art. Today, though we call
it medicine. Unlike architecture and poets, medicine didn't just exist
for its own sake. It existed to save lives. Motep
felt that there was no greater art than that. He
tried to help anyone he could who was suffering from
injury or illness. He considered his treatments a gift from
(07:13):
the god thought and recorded his findings as thoughts teachings.
Any physicians who deviated from these treatments was committing a
punishable crime. And that may sound ignorant, but it was
actually incredibly progressive for the time. You see, up until
this point, medicine was entirely based on superstition. This or
that herb was believed to cure this or that illness,
(07:34):
not out of testing or evidence, but out of passed
down traditions. If that herb didn't work, it was the
patient's fault for displeasing the gods. Imhotep, though believed his
treatments were from the gods, but he didn't believe that
they failed because of the patient. Instead, he believed that
the gods were telling him that he needed to try
something different. He was essentially inventing what we would call
(07:56):
today empiricism, the idea that knowledge is gained through other observation,
not intuition or superstition. It is the underpinning idea behind
the modern scientific method. Take Imhotep's current patient. With that
in mind, let's return to his patient at the moment,
the one mentioned at the beginning of this story. His
latest project laid out on the stone table. The man
(08:18):
had been mauled by a hippo. One leg had been
torn to shreds, the other was badly broken and had
a bone sticking out. He was covered in lacerations, and
there was a strange swelling in his abdomen. Imhotep used
trial and error. He applied a thick paste to the
mangled leg, but it was not enough. He next tried
a reed splint, which worked on the snapped leg, but
(08:39):
not the mangled one. He considered a plaster linen cast,
but worried that the bleeding was too great. Instead, he
had his assistants hold down the man and while he screamed.
Impo Tep used a saw to cut off the leg,
but then Imhotep retrieved a hot poker from a nearby fire,
which he used to cauterize the wound, because he thought
that this might finally stopped the bleeding, and it did
(09:02):
a new discovery for his book of medicine. Next, he
treated the lacerations with an oiled eel's head, wrapping the
wounds up with bandages afterward, and upon closely examining the
swollen abdomen, he made an incision with his scalpel, a
small fine blade that he had invented for work. Just
like this, black blood began to pour from the abdomen,
(09:24):
and then it stopped and the swelling went down. By
observing what worked and what didn't, Imhotep could learn how
to effectively treat a variety of injuries and diseases and
force other doctors in Egypt to do the same rather
than rely on superstition. His methods were so effective that
even two thousand years after his death, the Egyptians were
(09:44):
still using his teachings on others. Imhotep was one of
the few Egyptians to be raised to the status of godhood.
His work was so influential that it crossed the ocean
to Greece, where a man named Hippocrates was inspired by it.
He went on to become known as the father of
modern metas, and his Hippocratic oath do no harm is
still sworn by doctors today. Curiously, the real father of
(10:07):
modern medicine lived a couple thousand years prior. His methods
might seem rough today, but like his pyramid designs, they
laid the foundation for something magnificent. I hope you enjoyed
today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show
was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
(10:29):
researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com
slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official
Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking
for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's
(10:52):
all the same stories, but without the interruption for a
small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at
patreon dot com. Slash rim and mild and until next time,
stay curious m HM.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
One thousand years ago, in October of ten thirty two,
a man named Theophylactus did the unthinkable. He was named
pope at the age of twenty. He chose the name
Benedict the Ninth, and as far as we know, became
the youngest person to ever hold the title. Of course,
this was no coincidence. Two of his uncles had been
Pope's as well as his grand uncle and great granduncle.
(00:59):
He was part of it unofficial papal dynasty, and his
family's connections had been crucial to securing his election. Unsurprisingly,
his papacy was controversial almost from the start. He was
accused of making a mockery of Rome, living a hedonistic lifestyle.
We have no way of knowing which of these accusations
were true and which were politically motivated hearsay, but it's
(01:21):
easy enough to conclude that he was not a popular pope.
In ten thirty six, just four years later, Benedic found
himself exiled from Rome. He would return shortly after, thanks
to the support of Holy Roman Emperor Conrad the Second,
but he didn't get any more popular, and rumors of
his indiscretions only grew. In ten forty four, he was
(01:42):
exiled the second time, and this time local bishops appointed
a replacement, Pope Sylvester the Third, But Benedict the ninth
was not going to take this line down now in
his early thirties, He rallied and returned to Rome the
following year, ousting his replacement. But something had changed in
his attitude. We don't know for sure if he was
tired of being the pope or if the constant criticism
(02:04):
was finally getting to him, but by April of ten
forty five, he was considering leaving the papacy behind. Honestly,
he just wanted to get married and move on with
his life. So he did what few popes have ever
done before or since. He resigned, although not before making
a deal that would set him up comfortably. You see,
Benedict's godfather, John Gretien, was a well liked priest, Benedict
(02:26):
proposed that he would resign and allow Gratzien to take
the papacy as long as Gratien paid all the debts
that Benedict had incurred during the papal elections. His uncle consented,
paid up, and was named Pope Gregory the sixth. This
was a huge relief for the Catholic Church at large,
who immediately started to press Gregory to root out corruption
(02:46):
amongst the priesthood. However, this wasn't a solution to the
problems created by Benedict's time in the Holy See. In fact,
it only made things more complicated. A year into his retirement,
Benedict started to regret his decision. In July of ten
forty six, he came back and demanded his proper place
as Pope, much to the annoyance of his godfather, and
(03:08):
around the same time, Sylvester the Third started speaking up,
claiming that he was the rightful pope. So, for those
who are keeping track at home, by ten forty six
there were three different popes, all claiming the title in Rome,
but nobody in Rome was powerful enough to do anything
about it. That November, the new Holy Roman Emperor Henry
the third traveled to Rome to meet the pope in
(03:30):
arrange for his coronation, so he spoke to Gregory the sixth,
only to learn that that guy was part of a
trinity who were squabbling over power. He learned that Gregory
himself got the title by paying off the previous pope,
who himself was part of a dynasty of corrupt popes.
It was more than a little outrageous. On December twentieth
of ten forty six, Henry the Third gathered a council
(03:51):
of bishops to address this chaos. All three popes were
invited too, but only Sylvester the Iird and Gregory the
sixth showed up. The bishops determined that soil l vest
the third was not a proper pope, and both Benedict
and Gregory had obtained their titles illegitimately. So after the council,
Henry deposed all three popes, appointing Clement the Second in
their place to return stability to the Roman Catholic Church.
(04:14):
Which is enough to make your head spin. Right, we
have four guys now who all claimed to want to
wear the point he had, So what happened to the others? Well,
Sylvester returned to Sabina, where he served as a bishop
for the rest of his life. Gregory left for Germany
and died only a few years later. Benedict, however, never
learned his lesson. After Clement the second died, Bennedict seized
(04:35):
the papal throne yet again, resulting in the Church fully
excommunicating him. His final fate is actually unknown, but he
went down in history as the only pope to ever
sell the title and the only one to reign three
times nonconsecutively, no matter how hard he fought for it. Though,
it really seemed like he didn't take the job all
that seriously, which is perhaps even more damning than anything
(04:58):
he was accused of while he was in power. In
twenty seven hundred BC, a time so ancient its people
might seem completely alien to us today, the Egyptian architect
(05:22):
and priest Imhotep was performing a delicate operation on a
stone tablet beneath a single shaft of light. The light
shone down from a hole cut into the stone roof
above It allowed Imhotep to see every detail of his
work in the otherwise dark palace. He made subtle observations
tweaking things here and there he had his assistance record
(05:44):
everything on pages of papyrus. They needed to preserve what
they learned. After all, any knowledge gleaned was from the
creator God Ptah himself. That being said, Imhotep began his
career as a priest of Ra, the sun god. He
owed everything to Ra. Although im Hotel had been born
a commoner, this time as a priest had exposed him
to all kinds of learning. He became a master of architecture, poetry, astronomy,
(06:09):
and mathematics. His designs for a new kind of building,
to whom he called a pyramid, were much grander than
the plain rectangles the pharaohs and other important Egyptians were
buried in at the time. This had soon captured the
attention of the current pharaoh, and he immediately had Imhotep
build him a pyramid, even allowing m Hotep to carve
(06:29):
his name into one of the stones. Afterward, m Hotep
became his chief adviser, and although he was a master
of the arts, there was one art that he now
valued above all the others. Architecture no longer held any
mysteries the heavens They've all been mapped. Now he was
exploring a new frontier, an art form that wasn't just
fascinating but also necessary. In fact, im Hotep had taken
(06:53):
to calling it the necessary art. Today, though we call
it medicine. Unlike architecture and poets, medicine didn't just exist
for its own sake. It existed to save lives. Motep
felt that there was no greater art than that. He
tried to help anyone he could who was suffering from
injury or illness. He considered his treatments a gift from
(07:13):
the god thought and recorded his findings as thoughts teachings.
Any physicians who deviated from these treatments was committing a
punishable crime. And that may sound ignorant, but it was
actually incredibly progressive for the time. You see, up until
this point, medicine was entirely based on superstition. This or
that herb was believed to cure this or that illness,
(07:34):
not out of testing or evidence, but out of passed
down traditions. If that herb didn't work, it was the
patient's fault for displeasing the gods. Imhotep, though believed his
treatments were from the gods, but he didn't believe that
they failed because of the patient. Instead, he believed that
the gods were telling him that he needed to try
something different. He was essentially inventing what we would call
(07:56):
today empiricism, the idea that knowledge is gained through other observation,
not intuition or superstition. It is the underpinning idea behind
the modern scientific method. Take Imhotep's current patient. With that
in mind, let's return to his patient at the moment,
the one mentioned at the beginning of this story. His
latest project laid out on the stone table. The man
(08:18):
had been mauled by a hippo. One leg had been
torn to shreds, the other was badly broken and had
a bone sticking out. He was covered in lacerations, and
there was a strange swelling in his abdomen. Imhotep used
trial and error. He applied a thick paste to the
mangled leg, but it was not enough. He next tried
a reed splint, which worked on the snapped leg, but
(08:39):
not the mangled one. He considered a plaster linen cast,
but worried that the bleeding was too great. Instead, he
had his assistants hold down the man and while he screamed.
Impo Tep used a saw to cut off the leg,
but then Imhotep retrieved a hot poker from a nearby fire,
which he used to cauterize the wound, because he thought
that this might finally stopped the bleeding, and it did
(09:02):
a new discovery for his book of medicine. Next, he
treated the lacerations with an oiled eel's head, wrapping the
wounds up with bandages afterward, and upon closely examining the
swollen abdomen, he made an incision with his scalpel, a
small fine blade that he had invented for work. Just
like this, black blood began to pour from the abdomen,
(09:24):
and then it stopped and the swelling went down. By
observing what worked and what didn't, Imhotep could learn how
to effectively treat a variety of injuries and diseases and
force other doctors in Egypt to do the same rather
than rely on superstition. His methods were so effective that
even two thousand years after his death, the Egyptians were
(09:44):
still using his teachings on others. Imhotep was one of
the few Egyptians to be raised to the status of godhood.
His work was so influential that it crossed the ocean
to Greece, where a man named Hippocrates was inspired by it.
He went on to become known as the father of
modern metas, and his Hippocratic oath do no harm is
still sworn by doctors today. Curiously, the real father of
(10:07):
modern medicine lived a couple thousand years prior. His methods
might seem rough today, but like his pyramid designs, they
laid the foundation for something magnificent. I hope you enjoyed
today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show
was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
(10:29):
researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com
slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official
Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
as well as ebook and audiobook. And if you're looking
for an ad free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's
(10:52):
all the same stories, but without the interruption for a
small monthly fee. Learn more and sign up over at
patreon dot com. Slash rim and mild and until next time,
stay curious m HM.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.