October 17, 2024 • 39 mins
Whether we're talking mysterious nosebleeds, drowning in full armor, or charging literally blind into battle, history is chock-full of ridiculous royal deaths. In the fifth -- and for now, final -- installment of this series, Ben, Max and Noel dive deep into more morbid tales of rulers who met with untimely ends.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
(00:27):
show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. Let's hear it from the man the myth
Legend super producer, mister Max Williams ye hus up charging
blindly into the episode. We are joined, of course, with
your host mister Noel Brown and mister Ben Bollen going
(00:49):
by that name these days. Look, folks, this is what
are Pal Max called a little bit bittersweet. It's not
goodbye forever, but it is goodbye for now. This is
our fifth episode on ridiculous Royal Deaths.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's not an ending, it's a new beginning. Speaking of
new beginnings, let's properly begin this episode again after this
cold open.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And we've returned, so folks, let's get going. There are
a lot of ridiculous royal deaths. We want to, as
always at the very top here tell you that some
of this is going to sound ghoulish, some of it
is going to be gory. We are talking about death.
It's also important, tru remember that during these respective time
(01:45):
periods there were many many people who met with unfortunate
or ridiculous deaths. We tend to know more about royal
deaths because there's simply more documentation about those folks. This
is where we get to one of the many King
(02:06):
John's and Max as our research associate for today, this
is one you've had in your back pocket for a while.
You wanted to save it for our big closer episode.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, so, like you know, we've had, in my opinions,
you know, we've had some pretty good ones. I think,
like the guy who got sat on the throne and
got crushed by the way to the throne, the guy you.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Got stabbed in.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
But let's see we uh, the first one really one
who started the whole series, the Swish king who ate
himself to death was great. But I honestly think this
might be the most ridiculous of them all.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I love it, and thank you Max for saving the
best for last. Who does love it?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I feel like there have been a couple versions there have.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But is it sometimes the sun goes around the moon? Yeah,
you know, schmamps, good old nineties schmaltz. So let's charge
blindly into battle with our buddy King John. Of course,
that Max believes to be the most ridiculous royal death
of the bunch to use phrasing that Khalid al Hasten
(03:13):
used over a history collective. John the Blind charged into
battle while blind bump bum. That's pretty badass, guys, yeah,
or stupid or a fine line between badass and stupid, right.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Right, And we're not being ablest. King John, This specific
King John is the King John of Bohemia from let's
say twelve ninety six to thirteen forty six. He wasn't
He was born sighted, but he got the not particularly
(03:49):
enviable nickname John the Blind after he lost his vision
in thirteen thirty six, so he lived a full decade
without sight. Before before this decade of blindness, he was
known to be a fantastic fighter. He had a jacket
(04:11):
or a track record or a CV of campaigning across Europe.
We're talking from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. He becomes
Count of Luxembourg and thirteen oh nine, and we talk
a lot about how aristocracies have always been kind of
a family oriented grift.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That's right. There are some nepo situations historically speaking, and
this was no exception. His father in law, the King
of Bohemia, passed away without any male heirs, which pointed
rights to John for the inheriting of the realm. He
became the king of Bohemia in thirteen ten.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And many other things happened. Without getting into the weeds,
what we can say about his time i'm as ruler
is that he was super into invading places. You know,
he fought against forces in Hungary, England, Austria, he fought
the Russians, had some campaigns in Italy, and all right,
(05:17):
Max enlarged his kingdom, that's a Max quote by conquering
parts of other surrounding areas Silesia, Lusatia, and a lot
of Lombardy. Lombardy, by the time he was approaching the
year of thirteen thirty six, he would not be able
(05:42):
to fight in any more wars. He went blind through
a bacterial infection. Now at the time people did not
know this what this bacterial infection is. It's ophthalmia. This
is generally attributed as the cause of his blindness, but
where not specifically sure what kind of bacterial infection it is.
(06:04):
All we know is that while he was while he
was in conflict with forces in Lithuania, he did lose
his sight. And even though people said, look, this guy's
a war he wrote or the equivalent for that day.
But he's not a super popular ruler because he lives
(06:26):
life high on the hog and he expects his kingdom
to pay for it exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
In order to do that, he levied heavy taxes, which
made him a pretty unpopular ruler, and these were specifically
designed for the purposes of propping up that lavish lifestyle
that you're talking about. Ben he was a huge fan
of the French, having been raised and educated in Paris.
He was essentially French in his outlook and allegiances and sympathies.
(06:55):
He even sent his own son to be educated in
Paris rather than in his own capital city of Prague.
There in Bohemia. At the start of the one hundred
Years War, King Philip the fifth of France asked for
help against England's Edward the third. Despite his unsightedness, John
(07:17):
rushed into help and meet the French king in Paris
in August of thirteen forty six, where he then marched
alongside him to take on the English in the field
of battle, where the army's met at the Battle of
Cressey on August twenty six, thirteen forty six.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, and again he has lost his sight. He has
been blind for around a decade now, and he is
a legend. So he is placed in charge of the
French vanguard, the opening forces, and he is also running
a big part of the French army. It's okay to
(08:00):
do that to, you know, command the troops, maybe from
the back of the front lines. But something about the
game of war, the sounds, the smells, the excitement of
the conflict called to him, right, and so he decides,
(08:21):
I have to be part of this. And he looks
at his knights and he says, all right, guys, tie
your horses to my horse and guide us into the battle.
Because it's very important to me and to my people
and my kingdom that I can at least get one
shot in one stroke of the sword against these English dogs.
(08:44):
And this way my honor shall be satisfied because I
won't be just some guy delegating. I will be actually
participating in the fight.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
His knights.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, this is not a democracy. Nobody gets to vote.
He said, do this, and they say, okay, you're the king,
and so they tie their horses to his horse, and
guided by knights, the blind king rides into the heat
of battle.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, exactly, and as you can imagine from the title
of this episode, it did not end particularly well. John
the Blind, being blind, was not able to get a
sense for how far he had advanced and went way
too deep into the English lines. He ended up getting
(09:35):
cut off and absolutely surrounded by the enemy, and in
the following skirmish melee, the king and all of his
attendants were absolutely slaughtered.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, unpleasant, and also, you know, we have to exercise empathy.
Those poor knights probably knew exactly what was going to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, yeah, you can't really say no to the king,
like you said, Ben, I mean, it's unfortunately goes along
with the territory because if you do say no, then
you'll probably be killed.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Anyway, right, and they'll just put a different guy on
the horse.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's that's the issue. And there's this is one ridiculous
royal death. We have we have more ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Here is.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Here's a crazy one. Noel, have you ever heard of Draco?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Of course, Draco Malfoy from a Harry Potter franchise, the
very same Yes, of course, Now I haven't heard of
you know, I have, but only by reputation, I suppose,
in terms of like a word that is associated with him,
the idea of something being draconian, a law being particularly
punishing and harsh. But I guess in terms of like why,
(11:00):
I've never thought to explore much further where that term
comes from. It does remind me of things like Hamarabi's code,
you know, like party, like an eye for an eye,
things that are particularly punishing to those who would break
the law.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Like draconian punishment.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, exactly, so that is where that is exactly where
that term comes from. Draco was an Athenian law maker,
lawgiver who created a very very harsh legal code with
punishments that would be meted out for even the most
trivial crimes, not to mention incredibly harsh penalties for a
(11:34):
more serious crimes.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Late library book execution. Yes, did you get caught p
and in public? Kill them, string them up?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Mm hmm. Yeah. So the use of the word draconian
continues on to this day, and to kind of summarize
our I guess somewhat of an anti hero. Draco's Code
was certainly not the first set of laws and Athens.
Aristotle references that folks who started doing this came around
in six eighty three BS. Well, Draco wrote his set
(12:02):
of codes in six twenty one BCE, and remember in
BCE they counted backwards, which they definitely did at the time.
But many folks believe that Draco's set of laws were
the first comprehensive code of laws, and they were indeed draconian, draconic,
you know, choose whichever words you wish. Britannica puts it
(12:24):
like this. Draco's code was later regarded as intolerably harsh,
punishing trivial crimes with death. It was probably unsatisfactory to
contemporaries since Solon, who was the Arkon in five ninety
four BC, later repealed Draco's code and published new laws
retaining only Draco's homicide statues.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Okay, call it back a little bit, because I think
it is a red flag when you're so bad that
a bad thing is now named after you, You know what
I mean, Blake, here's hoping we never get in that
situation ourselves. We're not talking about his repressive legislation, though,
(13:04):
we are talking about how he passed away. He died
around six hundred BCE because people through clothing at him.
True story, not stoning, not where you throw according.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
To the story.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Sure, the idea is that people threw so many hats
and cloaks over him that he suffocated. However, because we're
talking about something that happened so far in the past,
there aren't a ton of super like super universally agreeing
(13:43):
sources on this. But we we do have to say,
if this is at all true, royal death by pop
up cloakroom is pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Now, it sure is jump in here real.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I actually found owned an article because see, some of
the problems with these last couple ones is finding sourcing
that can say with certainty on these things like these deaths,
the dust we've done before, we know that's how these
people died. They were fairly starting.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
This is that one.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
But I found one work that said the Draco was
killed by people throwing has some cloaks on him out
of appreciation for his laws. And then everything else I've
seen said, no, everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Hated this guy. Yeah, they knew what they were doing.
I think built them.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I think, uh, and this is I don't want this
to be too broad a brush, but I think it's
fair to say most members of the public throughout civilization
don't love having to pay really high taxes. They don't
love loving They just have a different idea of what
constant what defines high taxation. You know, like, of course
(14:53):
there are modern European countries that comes to mind, where
people have higher tax rates in many way than other countries,
but they also tend to have a higher standard of
living and a higher general quality of life, and they
also don't really consider their taxes that high. And you know,
(15:14):
when you get into the idea centuries ago, millennia ago,
or even in the modern day of how to run
a country, it can make you feel pretty crazy. It's
enough to make your brain bleed, to get a little
trickle of blood down your nose, just like in that
movie Scanners before their heads explode.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Or like Eleven in The Stranger Things, Yeah, just so,
or like Attila the Hun oh Man, he was not
a sweetheart. Attila was the king of the Huns from
four thirty four to four fifty three. He ruled with
his older brother Blada. You don't really hear people talking
about Blada much until four forty five. He was considered
(15:54):
one of the greatest of the Barbarian rulers who absolutely
annihilated the Roman Empire. Invading its southern provinces in the
Balkans and Greece, and then in Gaul and Italy. Legend
has it he was known as Etzel in the Nibelunglite,
which is I believe what the Ring Cycle is based
(16:16):
on the Wagner opera series under the name Attilli in
Icelandic sagas. So he was indeed a person of legend.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, similar to I. For some reason, he the
story of Attila the Hun or the historical position of
the guy always kind of reminded me of tamer Lane
or Teamyr of the Lame. Another good story for another day.
If you go to n s or everybody in s
(16:46):
Gil writing for thought Co, you'll see that sources don't
really one hundred percent agree on how Attila the Hun died,
but most people will tell you the guy died on
his wedding night. And we're getting again, because of the
passage of time in the Great Game of telephone, we're
(17:06):
getting a lot of this information from people who were
writing based on other writing they had heard, particularly a
sixth century monk named Jordaynes, and Jordaines probably got this
from a guy the century before, a history named prisis,
(17:28):
and only parts of this combined documentation or historiography has survived.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, Jordaine's put it in four fifty three CE that
Attila had just married his most recent wife, a young
woman named Ildaco, and in order to commemorate that union,
he held a series of great feasts. In the morning
after the guards broke into his room, only to find
(18:00):
his lifeless corpse in his bed, with his new bride
shedding tears on his remains.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, there was no visible wound. However, it appears that
Attila had some sort of internal hemorrhaging through his nose. Possibly,
and our buddy Jordaines says, Attila choked on his own blood.
(18:31):
That's an unclean way to go. But there are ever
since then there are there's this proliferation of scenarios about
how his death may have occurred. Yeah, maybe he was assassinated,
Maybe his wife was a plant, there was a conspiracy
from a rival emperor in the east, and then maybe
(18:54):
multiple people were in on it. So your new wife,
who seems too good to be true, actually is and
she kills you when she gets you alone for the
first time on the wedding night, and then the guards
are also in on it, so they cover up the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Sure, but also, I mean maybe Ockham's razor ad a
little bit. Couldn't it have just been something as simple
as like a undiagnosed brain issue, like a brain hemorrhage
or some sort of brain bleed, not to mention that
he was, you know, participating in some heavy partying and
then followed by some heavy petting, which you know, certainly
(19:33):
we know of situations where people that have undiagnosed health
issues can drop dead of exertion. To not be too
crass about it.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Right right, alcohol poisoning could have been a factor, And
I do appreciate that point about the most simple answer
being the most plausible. We know that until the hunt
did die, obviously he's not around now, and we know
that the historical record show the primary physical difference between
(20:06):
a live Attila and a dead Attila was the nesbleed.
But as for how the newsbleed happened, we don't know. Uh,
we don't know exactly. Well, I guess we can say this.
I don't think it's worth building a time machine to
find out, because I don't think Attila's the kind of
guy that I would want to hang out with.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I don't think so either. Seems pretty scary if I'm
not mistaken. Wasn't the character of Cayle Drogo and The
Song of Ice and Fire in some part based on
the Attila, the Hun and the Huns.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I always thought Kyle Drogo was more of a connate
kind of character. Oh that's fair, Yeah, because of the horses. Yeah,
that's a good point either way.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Dude was definitely not to be trifled with, and I
certainly want to wouldn't want to be alone in a
room with them, let alone his bedroom. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
There there is also a weird wedding night thing if
I recall the story with cal Drogo.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Correct, that's that's just what made me think of it.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, okay, and then we've got a We've got one
more ridiculous royal death for you folks. We're traveling through
time a little bit to explore the Holy Roman Empire
and our buddy with a last name that I love,
Frederick Barbarossa.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I know, I do. It makes me think of Barbarrella.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh right, I forgot about.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
What it means. I don't red makes that makes sense? Yeah? Okay. Wow,
you learned something new every day here on ridiculous history,
we hope.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, or or at least learned something ridiculous. Uh So,
our our buddy red Beard Freddie Red's is the Duke
of Swabia and he also becomes German king in Holy
Roman Emperor. This is just one hit after another. He
also makes very powerful enemies. He's beefed up with the
(22:13):
Pope and he says he's thinking like all world leaders do.
He says, how can I establish hegemonic control of my region?
I want Germany to be sort of the central, the
fulcrum of all Western Europe. And so he gets in
(22:35):
conflicts with other countries that say, hey, no, we want
you know, we want to drive you ride shotgun, and
particularly with Italian city states. He's in fights with them
for almost thirty years. He sends a lot of expeditions southward.
This is also the time.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Of the Crusades, indeed, and he died while on the
Third Crusade. And let's be clear there, there's definitely a
ton of stuff to cover on this guy, and it
could be an episode unto itself, I think. But we
aren't talking about his life exactly today as much as
we are talking about the context surrounding his end during
the Third Crusade. So let's set the stage a little bit. Yeah,
(23:16):
all right.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
This is where we get to introduce Saladin, the actual guy.
He had recently, he and his forces, i should say,
had regained control of Jerusalem. The Christian forces, the European forces,
already previously involved with the past two crusades. They're very
angry about this, and so they look to freddie Red
(23:42):
and they say, look, man, you're in charge of the
Holy Roman Empire. You're an absolute hard case. You should
lead the charge, and you should do it to take
back Jerusalem for the Christians. And they probably said some
pretty things about non Christian forces. According to Chester Olivier,
(24:05):
writing for The Collector, freddie Red wasn't immediately on board
with this. They had to they had to grease the wheels,
They had to give him some cool elevator pitches, and
every time they did he was like, what's an elevator?
And they were like, ask us a few centuries from now.
Eventually he agrees to take up the vow of being
(24:29):
a crusader once more. At this point, he's already been
through the ringer of Crusades and he is into his sixties.
That's that's not the ideal time to beget a foreign campaign, right. Eventually,
he says, all right, despite my age, despite my experience
(24:50):
in a previous failed crusade, I will lead a force
towards the Holy Land to retake Jerusalem. And then they
group up and they head over to Asia Minor, which
think of it, you know, like the the upper Middle East.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I don't know why I said that, Like it's Manhattan. Well, yeah,
the upper east side of Asia. So entering Asia Minor
desert news puts it. The Turks launched several attacks against him,
which he was able to beat back, despite heavy losses.
Barbarossa's march had been a success. He had transported his
army and preserved much of it for the campaigns to
(25:29):
come in the Holy Land. So then as he approached
southern Turkey, in a town called silif Slifka, Barbarossa he
made a bit of a goof, made a bit of
an error and judgment.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Mm hmm, Thomas Asbridge rights uh. The Emperor impatiently decided
to ford the river Salath ahead of his troops. His
horse lost its footing in midstream, throwing Frederick into the
river and like oftentimes is the case we see with
the high falutint officials. You think they're so powerful and
(26:04):
they got everything going for him, yet they never learned
to swim. They never learned to swim, and he unfortunately drowned.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
I will jump in here as well and say he
was most certainly in full armor.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Fair, I don't think from what I was reading, it
sounds like he couldn't swim, and also he had which
is it's double like and you're the emperor and you're
in your sixties and you're just like crossing a river
because you're annoyed how long it's taking everyone else to
get there.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Have you ever been in a river and you think, man,
this is inconvenient?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So he's like, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Also, I think one thing a lot of historical fiction
kind of glosses over is just how much armor weighs
and how short battles are. Hand to hand combat, you know,
is incredibly taxing, and every time you see, you know,
(27:03):
like a thirty minute fight scene or heck, even at
twenty five minute fight scene, the real one was probably
much shorter, just just being honest, or they were taking
breaks in the middle, you know, and they were just
smacking the crap out of each other, denting armor and
then trying to get that dagger in through a chink
(27:23):
in the armor. And at some point they both just
started standing there, wheezing and bleeding like.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh oh, the old weas and bleeds, the old weason bleed.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And then at some point I guess someone says, all right,
time in and they get back to it for another
five Yeah, for sure, So it makes sense he would drown,
not going how to swim and having all that accoutremol
fence festooned around him. His son takes over command for
a time. Frederick of Yeah named it a burst of
(27:55):
creativity after his father. And the problem is, this guy's
death a couple other factors were a huge hit to
the morale of the German army. And this is where
we go to an historian, Rodney Stark, who says the
army was devastated by the emperor's death. Huge numbers of
Germans just turned around and went.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Home to make matters worse for the Schwabian cause. Since
Barbarosa's son had initially attempted to stick around and fight
it out, his father's body also had to stick around
and of course, you know, there's a bit of a
window of time before a dead body begins to do
(28:38):
the things that dead bodies do. So in order to
kind of stem the tide of decay, they attempted to
preserve it. And the best way they knew how the
materials they had on hand paper mache. No wait close, no,
well it's a p word, that's for sure. Pickling materials,
(28:58):
you know, because as we know, times rations were preserved
in vinegar. So they had a big old barrel of
vinegar that they shoved his body into. Oh and it
made him into a human pickle.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Classy, classy.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I don't care for pickles that much on their own.
I like him on a sandwich every now and again.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I remember when one of the last times, no several
years ago, I was in New York and you see
these restaurant trends move as the single wave, and this
was the era of high pickle in New York, and
no matter where you went, people were pushing me hard
(29:36):
for these housemade pickles, to the point where, you know,
it was like a Larry David thing. I felt awkward
not trying to pickle because everybody would talk about it
in these conspiratorial tones.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Oh you gotta try the pickle. Then the bread and
butter pickle is to die for. Welcome insert name here
in Brooklyn artisanally hand crafted pickles.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You must try our pickles. Yes, we named the cucumbers
and raised them anyway.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Uh Man, it took me a while to come around
to pickles. I'm still not all the way there, but
I like it chuttany, and I like certain pickled things
like I love the banchon that comes with like curry,
barbecue and things like that, and certain like pickled the quick,
pickled vegetables. But I don't know a pickle pickle like
a dill pickle, a kosher I just I've never had
a taste for it. I do, like I said, like
them pickle chips like on a burger. But that's really
(30:25):
the only way I did it. I don't really like
to eat them. Would you need a pickle? Would you
eat pickled human flesh? Pickle human flesh? Absolutely, I'd try
it once.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
That was not their goal here, Ben, They were not
pickling Frederick with the intent of consuming his his pickli flesh. No,
they were trying to. They were trying to, you know,
they were.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Trying to do him a solid m It was not
the first there was. There were several other historical figures
who got pickled. And this also reminds me of oh gosh,
one of my favorite historical anecdotes that's not been proven.
Have you guys ever heard of mellified men?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think I have. Yeah, remind me though it's just
ringing a bell. It's the idea of man.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Using pickling and vinegar, use honey.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Oh that's right, yes, of course, yes, that's also a
good preservative. And it was used by the Egyptians as
well to like preserve organs of the pharaohs. I believe
oftentimes many times their organs were removed and stored in
jars of honey. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
And the idea what the mellified man in particular, was
that you could through this process create some kind of
magic healing substance. To what you were saying earlier, though, Noel,
the idea of the idea of somehow preserving Frederick Barbarossa's body,
it's entirely because they really believe in the guy, you know,
(31:49):
and he is a He is more than a single
human being to them. He is a very powerful political
and geopolitical symbol, so so much so that he is
not buried in the same place. His flesh is at
the Church of Saint Peter and Antioch, his bones are
(32:09):
in a cathedral and tire, and his heart and inner
organs were put in tarsus. And I don't know, I
don't know how you guys feel. I get it because
this is still the age of you know, the reliquary. Sure,
but but it feels, doesn't that feel.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I'm gonna send you a liver like in your head
to the other like so much, or like a thing
you would do to as a show of threatening force
to an enemy.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Like anti vampire measures.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Also true, you gotta make sure they can't like crawl
their way to reassemble.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Right, There's no way he might be able to reach
his heart and inner organs and tarsus, but there's no
way he can crawl to the bones. I don't know.
I mean, I I do under I do understand it.
But it also it does feel a bit off putting
in the modern day because now you start to think, Okay,
(33:10):
did someone in the government at the time have a
prioritized list of which city gets what?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, like they had it like in advance, you know, like, okay, hey,
we called DIBs on the heart, right, we called dims shotgun. Yeah,
it's super weird. Yeah, I don't know. I've been thinking
a lot lately about just burial in general. I actually
meant to bring this up, or maybe all will on
our next episode. But in strange news on stuff that
I want you to know, I found a story about
(33:39):
how I believe in the UK they are running out
of burial like real estate, and so some of the
like more let's call them vintage graves, they're considering reusing them.
It just really makes you think about what it takes
to bury remains and what a toll it takes on
available land. There isn't like an indefinite amount of the stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, yeah, And that's why some cultures, depending on their
dominant spiritual belief systems, that's why they may practice even
mass graves, or they may practice you know, normalization of cremation.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Big fan of cremation here, Please burn me when I'm serious. Yeah, man,
absolutely no, not for me, No, okay, fair enough. Both
of my parents were cremated. It just I think it's
an economical and practical solution. You're right, religious beliefs and
various beliefs in the afterlife, and the prerequisites of entering
(34:41):
such certainly come into play.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Ooh, that's a big.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Part of it.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I'm glad you mentioned that, because the some of the
big determining factors there are what you have to do
according to your spiritual of course school of thought. Right,
so there are specific rules and regulations and covenants about
how somebody has to get buried. I will say, since
(35:05):
we are talking about we are talking about royal deaths,
one of the most fascinating funeral practices that we've learned
about is the Tibetan practice of sky burial.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, remind us about that one a little bit. Bennett's
I just need.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
To refrash you're gonna feel the way about this that
I feel about cremation. Just for context, sky burial is
where you take so Tibet has a very is very
highly elevated right up in the mountains. And here's what
happens in sky burial. A human corpse is placed high
on a mountaintop and it decomposes while exposed to the elements,
(35:42):
and it is eaten by corvids and vultures.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
So yeah, that's burial.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
No, thank you. I don't think you'd like it. Yeah,
the idea of being picked to picked that by vultures
and eagles and such is pretty terrifying to me.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, so creation, how are we going to save it?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Folks?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Spoiler we are we are not. We want to again
thank everybody for tuning in. We have had a lot
of macabre fun with ridiculous royal deaths. There may be
some more on the way. We are going to We
are going to focus for a little bit on finishing
(36:26):
our cartoonishly unnecessary and overly ambitious plan to do an
episode about every state in the organ there though. We're
so I can't believe we've even pulled this off this far.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Same and thanks Max for cataloging our journey and keeping
us on track.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, because we would have done just like Florida fifty times.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Accidentally, Yeah, you guys have like already done like Florida
fifty times.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
But I mean it's not y'all's fault.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
It's I mean, Florida is just great for producing ridiculous history, not.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Going on there. And also our thoughts are with the
people of Florida, not to make light of the current
disasters that they have experienced.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yes, stay safe, folks, please do Obviously, we have a
lot of friends and family in the area and who
have been affected by the recent hurricanes. We hope this
episode finds you well and at the very least has
provided a bit of a fun distraction from the current events.
(37:26):
We also have an episode We're cooking up with waffle House.
We haven't written the waffle House. This is completely off
the books as far as they're concerned.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
We're just fans and we're else the fans of something
called the waffle House Index, which is a way of
measuring how serious a weather event might be.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
It's so weird because it's technically unofficial, but everybody use
Everybody uses it because waffle House is a don't stop,
won't stop kind of operation. So if the waffle House
is closing, that's really your canary and the climate coal mine.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Huge thanks to Max Williams, who is our super producer
and research associate extraordinaire on this episode.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Big big thanks to our composer, mister Alex Williams. Yes, folks,
they are related. And on that note, big thanks to
brother Dan Soft aj Bahamas Jacobs.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Those Dan Soft business.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Brother Dan Soft.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yes, sir, we'll explain off air. Cool.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Absolutely, we'll have little little secret for you ridiculous histories.
If you want to fight out more about that, you're
going to apt to tune in to our next episodes
as we as we sketch out the lore. Oh, Jonathan Strickler.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Of course, the quister Chris Frasciotis needs Jeff cos here
in spirit in ben Hues. Thanks to you, buddy, and.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Thanks to you man. Here's to avoiding at least some
of these ridiculous deaths ourselves.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Man, Get on the hope. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
(00:27):
show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. Let's hear it from the man the myth
Legend super producer, mister Max Williams ye hus up charging
blindly into the episode. We are joined, of course, with
your host mister Noel Brown and mister Ben Bollen going
(00:49):
by that name these days. Look, folks, this is what
are Pal Max called a little bit bittersweet. It's not
goodbye forever, but it is goodbye for now. This is
our fifth episode on ridiculous Royal Deaths.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's not an ending, it's a new beginning. Speaking of
new beginnings, let's properly begin this episode again after this
cold open.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
And we've returned, so folks, let's get going. There are
a lot of ridiculous royal deaths. We want to, as
always at the very top here tell you that some
of this is going to sound ghoulish, some of it
is going to be gory. We are talking about death.
It's also important, tru remember that during these respective time
(01:45):
periods there were many many people who met with unfortunate
or ridiculous deaths. We tend to know more about royal
deaths because there's simply more documentation about those folks. This
is where we get to one of the many King
(02:06):
John's and Max as our research associate for today, this
is one you've had in your back pocket for a while.
You wanted to save it for our big closer episode.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, so, like you know, we've had, in my opinions,
you know, we've had some pretty good ones. I think,
like the guy who got sat on the throne and
got crushed by the way to the throne, the guy you.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Got stabbed in.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
But let's see we uh, the first one really one
who started the whole series, the Swish king who ate
himself to death was great. But I honestly think this
might be the most ridiculous of them all.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I love it, and thank you Max for saving the
best for last. Who does love it?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I feel like there have been a couple versions there have.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But is it sometimes the sun goes around the moon? Yeah,
you know, schmamps, good old nineties schmaltz. So let's charge
blindly into battle with our buddy King John. Of course,
that Max believes to be the most ridiculous royal death
of the bunch to use phrasing that Khalid al Hasten
(03:13):
used over a history collective. John the Blind charged into
battle while blind bump bum. That's pretty badass, guys, yeah,
or stupid or a fine line between badass and stupid, right.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Right, And we're not being ablest. King John, This specific
King John is the King John of Bohemia from let's
say twelve ninety six to thirteen forty six. He wasn't
He was born sighted, but he got the not particularly
(03:49):
enviable nickname John the Blind after he lost his vision
in thirteen thirty six, so he lived a full decade
without sight. Before before this decade of blindness, he was
known to be a fantastic fighter. He had a jacket
(04:11):
or a track record or a CV of campaigning across Europe.
We're talking from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. He becomes
Count of Luxembourg and thirteen oh nine, and we talk
a lot about how aristocracies have always been kind of
a family oriented grift.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That's right. There are some nepo situations historically speaking, and
this was no exception. His father in law, the King
of Bohemia, passed away without any male heirs, which pointed
rights to John for the inheriting of the realm. He
became the king of Bohemia in thirteen ten.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And many other things happened. Without getting into the weeds,
what we can say about his time i'm as ruler
is that he was super into invading places. You know,
he fought against forces in Hungary, England, Austria, he fought
the Russians, had some campaigns in Italy, and all right,
(05:17):
Max enlarged his kingdom, that's a Max quote by conquering
parts of other surrounding areas Silesia, Lusatia, and a lot
of Lombardy. Lombardy, by the time he was approaching the
year of thirteen thirty six, he would not be able
(05:42):
to fight in any more wars. He went blind through
a bacterial infection. Now at the time people did not
know this what this bacterial infection is. It's ophthalmia. This
is generally attributed as the cause of his blindness, but
where not specifically sure what kind of bacterial infection it is.
(06:04):
All we know is that while he was while he
was in conflict with forces in Lithuania, he did lose
his sight. And even though people said, look, this guy's
a war he wrote or the equivalent for that day.
But he's not a super popular ruler because he lives
(06:26):
life high on the hog and he expects his kingdom
to pay for it exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
In order to do that, he levied heavy taxes, which
made him a pretty unpopular ruler, and these were specifically
designed for the purposes of propping up that lavish lifestyle
that you're talking about. Ben he was a huge fan
of the French, having been raised and educated in Paris.
He was essentially French in his outlook and allegiances and sympathies.
(06:55):
He even sent his own son to be educated in
Paris rather than in his own capital city of Prague.
There in Bohemia. At the start of the one hundred
Years War, King Philip the fifth of France asked for
help against England's Edward the third. Despite his unsightedness, John
(07:17):
rushed into help and meet the French king in Paris
in August of thirteen forty six, where he then marched
alongside him to take on the English in the field
of battle, where the army's met at the Battle of
Cressey on August twenty six, thirteen forty six.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, and again he has lost his sight. He has
been blind for around a decade now, and he is
a legend. So he is placed in charge of the
French vanguard, the opening forces, and he is also running
a big part of the French army. It's okay to
(08:00):
do that to, you know, command the troops, maybe from
the back of the front lines. But something about the
game of war, the sounds, the smells, the excitement of
the conflict called to him, right, and so he decides,
(08:21):
I have to be part of this. And he looks
at his knights and he says, all right, guys, tie
your horses to my horse and guide us into the battle.
Because it's very important to me and to my people
and my kingdom that I can at least get one
shot in one stroke of the sword against these English dogs.
(08:44):
And this way my honor shall be satisfied because I
won't be just some guy delegating. I will be actually
participating in the fight.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
His knights.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, this is not a democracy. Nobody gets to vote.
He said, do this, and they say, okay, you're the king,
and so they tie their horses to his horse, and
guided by knights, the blind king rides into the heat
of battle.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, exactly, and as you can imagine from the title
of this episode, it did not end particularly well. John
the Blind, being blind, was not able to get a
sense for how far he had advanced and went way
too deep into the English lines. He ended up getting
(09:35):
cut off and absolutely surrounded by the enemy, and in
the following skirmish melee, the king and all of his
attendants were absolutely slaughtered.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, unpleasant, and also, you know, we have to exercise empathy.
Those poor knights probably knew exactly what was going to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, yeah, you can't really say no to the king,
like you said, Ben, I mean, it's unfortunately goes along
with the territory because if you do say no, then
you'll probably be killed.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Anyway, right, and they'll just put a different guy on
the horse.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's that's the issue. And there's this is one ridiculous
royal death. We have we have more ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Here is.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Here's a crazy one. Noel, have you ever heard of Draco?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Of course, Draco Malfoy from a Harry Potter franchise, the
very same Yes, of course, Now I haven't heard of
you know, I have, but only by reputation, I suppose,
in terms of like a word that is associated with him,
the idea of something being draconian, a law being particularly
punishing and harsh. But I guess in terms of like why,
(11:00):
I've never thought to explore much further where that term
comes from. It does remind me of things like Hamarabi's code,
you know, like party, like an eye for an eye,
things that are particularly punishing to those who would break
the law.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Like draconian punishment.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, exactly, so that is where that is exactly where
that term comes from. Draco was an Athenian law maker,
lawgiver who created a very very harsh legal code with
punishments that would be meted out for even the most
trivial crimes, not to mention incredibly harsh penalties for a
(11:34):
more serious crimes.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Late library book execution. Yes, did you get caught p
and in public? Kill them, string them up?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Mm hmm. Yeah. So the use of the word draconian
continues on to this day, and to kind of summarize
our I guess somewhat of an anti hero. Draco's Code
was certainly not the first set of laws and Athens.
Aristotle references that folks who started doing this came around
in six eighty three BS. Well, Draco wrote his set
(12:02):
of codes in six twenty one BCE, and remember in
BCE they counted backwards, which they definitely did at the time.
But many folks believe that Draco's set of laws were
the first comprehensive code of laws, and they were indeed draconian, draconic,
you know, choose whichever words you wish. Britannica puts it
(12:24):
like this. Draco's code was later regarded as intolerably harsh,
punishing trivial crimes with death. It was probably unsatisfactory to
contemporaries since Solon, who was the Arkon in five ninety
four BC, later repealed Draco's code and published new laws
retaining only Draco's homicide statues.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Okay, call it back a little bit, because I think
it is a red flag when you're so bad that
a bad thing is now named after you, You know what
I mean, Blake, here's hoping we never get in that
situation ourselves. We're not talking about his repressive legislation, though,
(13:04):
we are talking about how he passed away. He died
around six hundred BCE because people through clothing at him.
True story, not stoning, not where you throw according.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
To the story.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Sure, the idea is that people threw so many hats
and cloaks over him that he suffocated. However, because we're
talking about something that happened so far in the past,
there aren't a ton of super like super universally agreeing
(13:43):
sources on this. But we we do have to say,
if this is at all true, royal death by pop
up cloakroom is pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Now, it sure is jump in here real.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
I actually found owned an article because see, some of
the problems with these last couple ones is finding sourcing
that can say with certainty on these things like these deaths,
the dust we've done before, we know that's how these
people died. They were fairly starting.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
This is that one.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
But I found one work that said the Draco was
killed by people throwing has some cloaks on him out
of appreciation for his laws. And then everything else I've
seen said, no, everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Hated this guy. Yeah, they knew what they were doing.
I think built them.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I think, uh, and this is I don't want this
to be too broad a brush, but I think it's
fair to say most members of the public throughout civilization
don't love having to pay really high taxes. They don't
love loving They just have a different idea of what
constant what defines high taxation. You know, like, of course
(14:53):
there are modern European countries that comes to mind, where
people have higher tax rates in many way than other countries,
but they also tend to have a higher standard of
living and a higher general quality of life, and they
also don't really consider their taxes that high. And you know,
(15:14):
when you get into the idea centuries ago, millennia ago,
or even in the modern day of how to run
a country, it can make you feel pretty crazy. It's
enough to make your brain bleed, to get a little
trickle of blood down your nose, just like in that
movie Scanners before their heads explode.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Or like Eleven in The Stranger Things, Yeah, just so,
or like Attila the Hun oh Man, he was not
a sweetheart. Attila was the king of the Huns from
four thirty four to four fifty three. He ruled with
his older brother Blada. You don't really hear people talking
about Blada much until four forty five. He was considered
(15:54):
one of the greatest of the Barbarian rulers who absolutely
annihilated the Roman Empire. Invading its southern provinces in the
Balkans and Greece, and then in Gaul and Italy. Legend
has it he was known as Etzel in the Nibelunglite,
which is I believe what the Ring Cycle is based
(16:16):
on the Wagner opera series under the name Attilli in
Icelandic sagas. So he was indeed a person of legend.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, similar to I. For some reason, he the
story of Attila the Hun or the historical position of
the guy always kind of reminded me of tamer Lane
or Teamyr of the Lame. Another good story for another day.
If you go to n s or everybody in s
(16:46):
Gil writing for thought Co, you'll see that sources don't
really one hundred percent agree on how Attila the Hun died,
but most people will tell you the guy died on
his wedding night. And we're getting again, because of the
passage of time in the Great Game of telephone, we're
(17:06):
getting a lot of this information from people who were
writing based on other writing they had heard, particularly a
sixth century monk named Jordaynes, and Jordaines probably got this
from a guy the century before, a history named prisis,
(17:28):
and only parts of this combined documentation or historiography has survived.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, Jordaine's put it in four fifty three CE that
Attila had just married his most recent wife, a young
woman named Ildaco, and in order to commemorate that union,
he held a series of great feasts. In the morning
after the guards broke into his room, only to find
(18:00):
his lifeless corpse in his bed, with his new bride
shedding tears on his remains.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, there was no visible wound. However, it appears that
Attila had some sort of internal hemorrhaging through his nose. Possibly,
and our buddy Jordaines says, Attila choked on his own blood.
(18:31):
That's an unclean way to go. But there are ever
since then there are there's this proliferation of scenarios about
how his death may have occurred. Yeah, maybe he was assassinated,
Maybe his wife was a plant, there was a conspiracy
from a rival emperor in the east, and then maybe
(18:54):
multiple people were in on it. So your new wife,
who seems too good to be true, actually is and
she kills you when she gets you alone for the
first time on the wedding night, and then the guards
are also in on it, so they cover up the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Sure, but also, I mean maybe Ockham's razor ad a
little bit. Couldn't it have just been something as simple
as like a undiagnosed brain issue, like a brain hemorrhage
or some sort of brain bleed, not to mention that
he was, you know, participating in some heavy partying and
then followed by some heavy petting, which you know, certainly
(19:33):
we know of situations where people that have undiagnosed health
issues can drop dead of exertion. To not be too
crass about it.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Right right, alcohol poisoning could have been a factor, And
I do appreciate that point about the most simple answer
being the most plausible. We know that until the hunt
did die, obviously he's not around now, and we know
that the historical record show the primary physical difference between
(20:06):
a live Attila and a dead Attila was the nesbleed.
But as for how the newsbleed happened, we don't know. Uh,
we don't know exactly. Well, I guess we can say this.
I don't think it's worth building a time machine to
find out, because I don't think Attila's the kind of
guy that I would want to hang out with.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I don't think so either. Seems pretty scary if I'm
not mistaken. Wasn't the character of Cayle Drogo and The
Song of Ice and Fire in some part based on
the Attila, the Hun and the Huns.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I always thought Kyle Drogo was more of a connate
kind of character. Oh that's fair, Yeah, because of the horses. Yeah,
that's a good point either way.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Dude was definitely not to be trifled with, and I
certainly want to wouldn't want to be alone in a
room with them, let alone his bedroom. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
There there is also a weird wedding night thing if
I recall the story with cal Drogo.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Correct, that's that's just what made me think of it.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, okay, and then we've got a We've got one
more ridiculous royal death for you folks. We're traveling through
time a little bit to explore the Holy Roman Empire
and our buddy with a last name that I love,
Frederick Barbarossa.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I know, I do. It makes me think of Barbarrella.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Oh right, I forgot about.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
What it means. I don't red makes that makes sense? Yeah? Okay. Wow,
you learned something new every day here on ridiculous history,
we hope.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah, or or at least learned something ridiculous. Uh So,
our our buddy red Beard Freddie Red's is the Duke
of Swabia and he also becomes German king in Holy
Roman Emperor. This is just one hit after another. He
also makes very powerful enemies. He's beefed up with the
(22:13):
Pope and he says he's thinking like all world leaders do.
He says, how can I establish hegemonic control of my region?
I want Germany to be sort of the central, the
fulcrum of all Western Europe. And so he gets in
(22:35):
conflicts with other countries that say, hey, no, we want
you know, we want to drive you ride shotgun, and
particularly with Italian city states. He's in fights with them
for almost thirty years. He sends a lot of expeditions southward.
This is also the time.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Of the Crusades, indeed, and he died while on the
Third Crusade. And let's be clear there, there's definitely a
ton of stuff to cover on this guy, and it
could be an episode unto itself, I think. But we
aren't talking about his life exactly today as much as
we are talking about the context surrounding his end during
the Third Crusade. So let's set the stage a little bit. Yeah,
(23:16):
all right.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
This is where we get to introduce Saladin, the actual guy.
He had recently, he and his forces, i should say,
had regained control of Jerusalem. The Christian forces, the European forces,
already previously involved with the past two crusades. They're very
angry about this, and so they look to freddie Red
(23:42):
and they say, look, man, you're in charge of the
Holy Roman Empire. You're an absolute hard case. You should
lead the charge, and you should do it to take
back Jerusalem for the Christians. And they probably said some
pretty things about non Christian forces. According to Chester Olivier,
(24:05):
writing for The Collector, freddie Red wasn't immediately on board
with this. They had to they had to grease the wheels,
They had to give him some cool elevator pitches, and
every time they did he was like, what's an elevator?
And they were like, ask us a few centuries from now.
Eventually he agrees to take up the vow of being
(24:29):
a crusader once more. At this point, he's already been
through the ringer of Crusades and he is into his sixties.
That's that's not the ideal time to beget a foreign campaign, right. Eventually,
he says, all right, despite my age, despite my experience
(24:50):
in a previous failed crusade, I will lead a force
towards the Holy Land to retake Jerusalem. And then they
group up and they head over to Asia Minor, which
think of it, you know, like the the upper Middle East.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I don't know why I said that, Like it's Manhattan. Well, yeah,
the upper east side of Asia. So entering Asia Minor
desert news puts it. The Turks launched several attacks against him,
which he was able to beat back, despite heavy losses.
Barbarossa's march had been a success. He had transported his
army and preserved much of it for the campaigns to
(25:29):
come in the Holy Land. So then as he approached
southern Turkey, in a town called silif Slifka, Barbarossa he
made a bit of a goof, made a bit of
an error and judgment.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Mm hmm, Thomas Asbridge rights uh. The Emperor impatiently decided
to ford the river Salath ahead of his troops. His
horse lost its footing in midstream, throwing Frederick into the
river and like oftentimes is the case we see with
the high falutint officials. You think they're so powerful and
(26:04):
they got everything going for him, yet they never learned
to swim. They never learned to swim, and he unfortunately drowned.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
I will jump in here as well and say he
was most certainly in full armor.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Fair, I don't think from what I was reading, it
sounds like he couldn't swim, and also he had which
is it's double like and you're the emperor and you're
in your sixties and you're just like crossing a river
because you're annoyed how long it's taking everyone else to
get there.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Have you ever been in a river and you think, man,
this is inconvenient?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
So he's like, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Also, I think one thing a lot of historical fiction
kind of glosses over is just how much armor weighs
and how short battles are. Hand to hand combat, you know,
is incredibly taxing, and every time you see, you know,
(27:03):
like a thirty minute fight scene or heck, even at
twenty five minute fight scene, the real one was probably
much shorter, just just being honest, or they were taking
breaks in the middle, you know, and they were just
smacking the crap out of each other, denting armor and
then trying to get that dagger in through a chink
(27:23):
in the armor. And at some point they both just
started standing there, wheezing and bleeding like.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh oh, the old weas and bleeds, the old weason bleed.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
And then at some point I guess someone says, all right,
time in and they get back to it for another
five Yeah, for sure, So it makes sense he would drown,
not going how to swim and having all that accoutremol
fence festooned around him. His son takes over command for
a time. Frederick of Yeah named it a burst of
(27:55):
creativity after his father. And the problem is, this guy's
death a couple other factors were a huge hit to
the morale of the German army. And this is where
we go to an historian, Rodney Stark, who says the
army was devastated by the emperor's death. Huge numbers of
Germans just turned around and went.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Home to make matters worse for the Schwabian cause. Since
Barbarosa's son had initially attempted to stick around and fight
it out, his father's body also had to stick around
and of course, you know, there's a bit of a
window of time before a dead body begins to do
(28:38):
the things that dead bodies do. So in order to
kind of stem the tide of decay, they attempted to
preserve it. And the best way they knew how the
materials they had on hand paper mache. No wait close, no,
well it's a p word, that's for sure. Pickling materials,
(28:58):
you know, because as we know, times rations were preserved
in vinegar. So they had a big old barrel of
vinegar that they shoved his body into. Oh and it
made him into a human pickle.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Classy, classy.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I don't care for pickles that much on their own.
I like him on a sandwich every now and again.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I remember when one of the last times, no several
years ago, I was in New York and you see
these restaurant trends move as the single wave, and this
was the era of high pickle in New York, and
no matter where you went, people were pushing me hard
(29:36):
for these housemade pickles, to the point where, you know,
it was like a Larry David thing. I felt awkward
not trying to pickle because everybody would talk about it
in these conspiratorial tones.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Oh you gotta try the pickle. Then the bread and
butter pickle is to die for. Welcome insert name here
in Brooklyn artisanally hand crafted pickles.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
You must try our pickles. Yes, we named the cucumbers
and raised them anyway.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Uh Man, it took me a while to come around
to pickles. I'm still not all the way there, but
I like it chuttany, and I like certain pickled things
like I love the banchon that comes with like curry,
barbecue and things like that, and certain like pickled the quick,
pickled vegetables. But I don't know a pickle pickle like
a dill pickle, a kosher I just I've never had
a taste for it. I do, like I said, like
them pickle chips like on a burger. But that's really
(30:25):
the only way I did it. I don't really like
to eat them. Would you need a pickle? Would you
eat pickled human flesh? Pickle human flesh? Absolutely, I'd try
it once.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
That was not their goal here, Ben, They were not
pickling Frederick with the intent of consuming his his pickli flesh. No,
they were trying to. They were trying to, you know,
they were.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Trying to do him a solid m It was not
the first there was. There were several other historical figures
who got pickled. And this also reminds me of oh gosh,
one of my favorite historical anecdotes that's not been proven.
Have you guys ever heard of mellified men?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think I have. Yeah, remind me though it's just
ringing a bell. It's the idea of man.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Using pickling and vinegar, use honey.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Oh that's right, yes, of course, yes, that's also a
good preservative. And it was used by the Egyptians as
well to like preserve organs of the pharaohs. I believe
oftentimes many times their organs were removed and stored in
jars of honey. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
And the idea what the mellified man in particular, was
that you could through this process create some kind of
magic healing substance. To what you were saying earlier, though, Noel,
the idea of the idea of somehow preserving Frederick Barbarossa's body,
it's entirely because they really believe in the guy, you know,
(31:49):
and he is a He is more than a single
human being to them. He is a very powerful political
and geopolitical symbol, so so much so that he is
not buried in the same place. His flesh is at
the Church of Saint Peter and Antioch, his bones are
(32:09):
in a cathedral and tire, and his heart and inner
organs were put in tarsus. And I don't know, I
don't know how you guys feel. I get it because
this is still the age of you know, the reliquary. Sure,
but but it feels, doesn't that feel.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
I'm gonna send you a liver like in your head
to the other like so much, or like a thing
you would do to as a show of threatening force
to an enemy.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Like anti vampire measures.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Also true, you gotta make sure they can't like crawl
their way to reassemble.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Right, There's no way he might be able to reach
his heart and inner organs and tarsus, but there's no
way he can crawl to the bones. I don't know.
I mean, I I do under I do understand it.
But it also it does feel a bit off putting
in the modern day because now you start to think, Okay,
(33:10):
did someone in the government at the time have a
prioritized list of which city gets what?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, like they had it like in advance, you know, like, okay, hey,
we called DIBs on the heart, right, we called dims shotgun. Yeah,
it's super weird. Yeah, I don't know. I've been thinking
a lot lately about just burial in general. I actually
meant to bring this up, or maybe all will on
our next episode. But in strange news on stuff that
I want you to know, I found a story about
(33:39):
how I believe in the UK they are running out
of burial like real estate, and so some of the
like more let's call them vintage graves, they're considering reusing them.
It just really makes you think about what it takes
to bury remains and what a toll it takes on
available land. There isn't like an indefinite amount of the stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, yeah, And that's why some cultures, depending on their
dominant spiritual belief systems, that's why they may practice even
mass graves, or they may practice you know, normalization of cremation.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Big fan of cremation here, Please burn me when I'm serious. Yeah, man,
absolutely no, not for me, No, okay, fair enough. Both
of my parents were cremated. It just I think it's
an economical and practical solution. You're right, religious beliefs and
various beliefs in the afterlife, and the prerequisites of entering
(34:41):
such certainly come into play.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Ooh, that's a big.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Part of it.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I'm glad you mentioned that, because the some of the
big determining factors there are what you have to do
according to your spiritual of course school of thought. Right,
so there are specific rules and regulations and covenants about
how somebody has to get buried. I will say, since
(35:05):
we are talking about we are talking about royal deaths,
one of the most fascinating funeral practices that we've learned
about is the Tibetan practice of sky burial.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, remind us about that one a little bit. Bennett's
I just need.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
To refrash you're gonna feel the way about this that
I feel about cremation. Just for context, sky burial is
where you take so Tibet has a very is very
highly elevated right up in the mountains. And here's what
happens in sky burial. A human corpse is placed high
on a mountaintop and it decomposes while exposed to the elements,
(35:42):
and it is eaten by corvids and vultures.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
So yeah, that's burial.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
No, thank you. I don't think you'd like it. Yeah,
the idea of being picked to picked that by vultures
and eagles and such is pretty terrifying to me.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, so creation, how are we going to save it?
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Folks?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Spoiler we are we are not. We want to again
thank everybody for tuning in. We have had a lot
of macabre fun with ridiculous royal deaths. There may be
some more on the way. We are going to We
are going to focus for a little bit on finishing
(36:26):
our cartoonishly unnecessary and overly ambitious plan to do an
episode about every state in the organ there though. We're
so I can't believe we've even pulled this off this far.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Same and thanks Max for cataloging our journey and keeping
us on track.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, because we would have done just like Florida fifty times.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Accidentally, Yeah, you guys have like already done like Florida
fifty times.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
But I mean it's not y'all's fault.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
It's I mean, Florida is just great for producing ridiculous history, not.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Going on there. And also our thoughts are with the
people of Florida, not to make light of the current
disasters that they have experienced.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yes, stay safe, folks, please do Obviously, we have a
lot of friends and family in the area and who
have been affected by the recent hurricanes. We hope this
episode finds you well and at the very least has
provided a bit of a fun distraction from the current events.
(37:26):
We also have an episode We're cooking up with waffle House.
We haven't written the waffle House. This is completely off
the books as far as they're concerned.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
We're just fans and we're else the fans of something
called the waffle House Index, which is a way of
measuring how serious a weather event might be.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
It's so weird because it's technically unofficial, but everybody use
Everybody uses it because waffle House is a don't stop,
won't stop kind of operation. So if the waffle House
is closing, that's really your canary and the climate coal mine.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Huge thanks to Max Williams, who is our super producer
and research associate extraordinaire on this episode.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
Big big thanks to our composer, mister Alex Williams. Yes, folks,
they are related. And on that note, big thanks to
brother Dan Soft aj Bahamas Jacobs.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Those Dan Soft business.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Brother Dan Soft.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yes, sir, we'll explain off air. Cool.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Absolutely, we'll have little little secret for you ridiculous histories.
If you want to fight out more about that, you're
going to apt to tune in to our next episodes
as we as we sketch out the lore. Oh, Jonathan Strickler.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Of course, the quister Chris Frasciotis needs Jeff cos here
in spirit in ben Hues. Thanks to you, buddy, and.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Thanks to you man. Here's to avoiding at least some
of these ridiculous deaths ourselves.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Man, Get on the hope. We'll see you next time, folks.
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Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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