Let's Get Medieval: Holy Relics Theft

Whether we're talking the hand of Mary Magdalene, the Skull of St. Foy, the Bones of St. Mark, in the Dark Ages holy relics were ripe for the taking. Thieving monks, conspiring bishops and rebel princesses all went to outrageous lengths to secure the blessings of the bones and body parts of the saints. Sometimes crime requires a little faith. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Elizabeth dutt is Sarah Burnett.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
How you doing good?

Speaker 1 (00:08):
There?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Are you feeling good? Feeling good in the neighborhood?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Totally? I mean, look at me over here, apple being up?
Just apple bean?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
How you applebee?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
What about you?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm good good? Yeah, nice good.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Gad to hear you got I got a question for
you while you're just you know, in the playful moods. Sure,
do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Honey?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I do, Honey, hush, honey.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You and I have talked a lot about how much
we like pickles, Yes, and embarrassingly amount, particularly grillos pickles, Yes,
the preferred Ridiculous crimes preferred pickle.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yes, they are in house fair.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Do you ever drink pickle juice?

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I had a friend who used to, and he turned
me onto it, and it's definitely Actually I gotta say,
it does something. It gives you a boost, does it?
It does something? I'll just put it that way. I
would recommend doing it for long periods of time. But like,
say you're injured and you're like a kid and he drinks
some pickles made me feel better.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I want to tell you you drink your own pea too.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
No, it's just like a face. It's like a brine.
So it's like people are in fermented stuff. This is
like fermented juice drunk. No, No, you just get like
it's like a wheat grass but but saltier. You know,
you get this pump.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Like. Yeah, the only time I use pickle juice is
when you get to the end of a grillo's tub.
Then you put chicken thighs in there to brind them,
and then you you put them in batter and deep frime,
and that's how you make a good chicken sandwich.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
So you chef stuff up. I'm over here just like
remembering being ten so, but.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Every like I'll finish a thing of pickles and I'm like,
I don't really need to be eating a fried chicken,
So like, what get out of here? And then I
dumb it down the drink. Anyway, that's not the ridiculous part.
I've dragged this on for far too long. I'm not
gonna drag it further. So another thing that you and
I like puff jackets. This is true, you know, like

(02:01):
north Face, I'm about that Codo Pasi light. So anyway,
what if what if you could. I don't know what's
the word, what's the phrase like mash up those two
things breathe deep. I can't express to you. There are
like pinnacle moments and communications from rude dudes to headquarters

(02:24):
about mashups, and it's usually they There was like a
Skittles one that was off the charts. The volume this
I think may have surpassed everything really because it's now
I'm starting to think, like, does the entire marketing world
listen to this podcast and then be like, you know
what a really delight Elizabeth and grind Xeran's gears so

(02:47):
kfc UK not not domestic garbage KFC.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Are they different? They like broken apart?

Speaker 2 (02:56):
I think yeah they were. They colonized us, so kfs UK.
They have this product that they have created. Well, first
they have the pickle Manium menu they've introduced. Okay, it's
like a seasonal thing, pickleburger, pickle loaded fries, frickles.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Pickles are apparently the hot flavor right now.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
I guess. And then pickle PEPSI max. So that's like
for your you and your little friends.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
You put your pickle in too many places.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Now, that's what they all say. And so anyway, they
have this whole thing, right they have. If you go
to their Instagram, which is the hell on earth that
gives us all this stuff, they you can get something
called a pickle puffer and you have to like win it.
You can't just go buy it without knowing.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
You brought in jackets earlier. Originally, if you would have
said pickle puffer, I would have imagined so many different
you know, it.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Would have been. So look, Zaron, I don't work blue.
So this is what I'm showing you a picture. It'll
be put up on Instagram. It's a puff jacket. We're
in the channels instead of down.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Like.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's filled with pickle juice and slices of pickles. And
then you'll note up here these little vents. That's where
it's like a little nozzle. You can stick a straw
in and drink the pickle juice.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
I'm afraid.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So if you get hurt, as you said, you just
this cushions the fall.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
I don't know why it worked well.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
And then pickle, but rather down or a down alternative.
The down alternative is pickles and pickle juice. Okay, so
it's again not in the store. You have to go
to KFC UK to their instagram.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Don't they have like a knife problem over in the UK?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
They do? There are age limits on this kind of.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Like tempting, like the people who are poking. If you saw.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Someone I still lived in Glasgow, I would start carrying
a knife in hopes that I saw someone with this
and I would slash slash slash drip for carrying does it?
And the zipper pole is a pickle? I mean, Saron,
the detail, the attention to detail on this product. So

(05:06):
before I was saying like about that gross toothpaste, like hey,
oh see here, like let me show you this picture
and I'll have them put this one up too. There's
the it's a permanent straw.

Speaker 5 (05:16):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Anyway, if you live in the UK and you happen
to win this, let's talk. Let's talk, baby, because how
does it arrive to you? Does it arrive fully loaded
or do they give you you have to provide somewhere
because like they're not going to ship it. Maybe they will, Colley,
someone has to win this.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
So many questions and then you don't have.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
To give it to me, but just tell me about it.
That's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
I'll give you this I know you will.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
You have to wait.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Wait, I got something. Yeah to ungrind my gears. Imagine, Elizabeth,
the folks who dare to steal from the Lord's holy agents.
I'm talking the theft of holy relics again.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, this is ridiculous crime.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, Elizabeth sar.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
We're both Catholics. Yeah, well, I mean I don't put
that around Catholic. We're at least nonpracticing Catholics or perhaps
former Catholics. I don't know what language.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Non practicing Catholic. Me and the Mother Church.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
We got issues, but we were catholically informed.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh yeah, we came up in it. It was so
kind of Catholics.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
They say it informs our worldview, beings, what you know,
and and also our sense of the calendar. Like for instance,
I know, we just finished Holy Week, and sure I thought,
you know, this past Sunday was Easter. I didn't make
it to church, but I wanted to mark the occasion,
so I found some Catholic crimes.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
I like it. I still if I lose something. I'm like,
all right, Saint Anthony, let's talk. Oh yeah, let's get this,
let's get this found.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
We're Saint Christopher metal all the time.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
So you know, I don't know these things.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
I guess I shouldn't say I'm non practicing. That's not
really fair.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Collapsed Catholics. There you go, Catholics on time out.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Now you've done an episode of religious relic thefts.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
I did.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
It was brilliant, terrible fun.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
It was enjoyable, so good.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
I wanted to go slightly surprise, surprise older. I was like,
how do I go back a couple of centuries today?
I haven't died.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, it's a medieval buffet of relic thefts. Yes, they
were popping it off. It was getting wild, but it's great.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
It's great material.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, so a buckle up, butter cup, we're about to
get ways with monks and nuns who decided to walk
on the wild side of the faith. At one time,
relic theft was so common there was actually a term
for it in Latin. The term is fertum sacra okay,
basically means holy theft.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Ye, holy theft.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Now, as you know, Catholics for us you know, relics
are believed to offer like a legit connection to the divine.
Like most relics are there like things, right, there's there's
like bones of the saints, perhaps a piece of clothing
that they wore or something they carry personal items exactly,
especially something that touched their skin. That's really kind of
important because also according to church beliefs, apparently if a

(08:36):
saint held an object through their touch, it kind of
like imbuse something that some of the divine grace passes
into the object, and a relic could actually do what
a saint could do, like perform miracles.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's like DNA.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Well it's like yeah, but now it can perform miracles
the same ones the saint could do. It's like I've
given it my miracle power, right, which is you know
that's that's handy.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
So handy.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Due to this profound spiritual power, relics they become cuted objects.
Everyone's like I wanted to get the miracle and viewing
like piece of saints bone or whatever. Now, Elizabeth, we
know what happens we coveted objects, right, Yeah, people steal crime.
So relic theft, as I said, it became so common
in the medieval era that it was actually not just
like oh, we have a name for it. It was

(09:17):
big business really. Oh yeah, there's like relic traders and
relic dealers, and they'd be breaking small fortune, like hawking
these relics right to all the true various true believers. Yeah,
and just the collectors and not just for like rich
private citizens. I'm talking. I mean like it was like
people who wanted protection. A lot of travelers, right, I know.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
They were also I don't know if you're going to
discuss this, but there were a lot of fake relics.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Oh yeah, well there's definitely a lot of fake relics.
In this case. All these relics are ostensibly real something
like I'm not they.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Would get like chicken bones exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Behold, anyone walking across the land if they hear there's like, oh,
a little pilgrimage site, they deviate like it's a roadside attraction.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's how you draw money to market Exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
It was like an early way to raise some money
for the monastery, you know, hook up the nuns of
the convent.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Equivalent of when you're driving down like a lonesome highway
and you see a sign that says beef jerkey, and
we have fifteen kinds of beef jerky. And you're like,
all right.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
The next time down the road walnuts.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Walnuts, oh any or driving in California up and down
the Central Valley, cherries and then all the dust rises
behind my car.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Rooster tailor gravel. No, as they said, relative trade theft
becomes so common. You have all these you traders, You
have people who are stealing your people who are like
just going out and like, you know, I'd really like
because it's become this thing that you know, it's going
to attract pilgrims. So if a holy relic is bought
or sold, obviously that means two things. Someone had to
steal it or you know, create it, and then they

(10:48):
had to sell it to the relic trader. Right, so
someone had to go and recover the holy objects. Sometimes
like oh, we go and went to the Holy Land
and we found this thing. So you get a lot
of adventurers coming back with tales of like pro nons
that are just outstanding. So at this point, like let's
consider the case of Saint Mark's Boats. Okay, way back
in the year eight eight to nine eighty nine, right,

(11:11):
I remember it well, Venetian merchants.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
I was but a young girl.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
You were, what, yeah, just a glimmer in the Iopa scene. Yeah,
I think sixteenth. So there are these two merchants, actually
Venetian merchants. They had great names, Buano and Rustico. Yeah,
they decided to ignore the bands.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
They're like, they're like named after supermarket brand name Breads.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Totally. So, yeah, they decided there's a band at the time,
Elizabeth against doing business with the various Muslims.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
There was a band. I was like, oh no, the Beatles, like.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
The Italian city states, they pretty much were been banned
by the part of doing business with the Muslim kingdoms
on the eastern Mediterranean. So they uh they you know,
and also North Africa, and uh so these are like,
the hell with all that, we're Venetian merchants. We don't
get god damn about all that. We're from the most
serene republic. We were all different. So they went down

(12:08):
to Alexandria in Egypt to do a little trading. And
while they're there buying up you know, cotton and lace
and silk and spices and whatnot, they hear about the
bones of Saint Mark and they're like, wait, where where
is the who's it now? They're like, oh, yeah, he
wasn't for sale because it wasn't his body for sale.
He was just sort of laying about right, just falling
into a state of vispers at that point.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
It was more he was kind of a freshie at
that point, he really was.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
They were like, wait, he's bouldering.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Where follows follow the vultures.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
They're like, we gotta go hook up Saint Mark soil.
Someone points him out. This pair of Venetian traders. They
go and they decided they take it. They're like rfk.
They're like, I gotta take this, put it, put it
in the boat. Right. They saved Saint Mark's bones and
they bring it back to Italy where they be like
properly venerated and whatnot. So they they go, we can't

(13:03):
do this by ourselves. We're just a pair of Venetian traders.
We're gonna need help. So they get two monks, right,
they find these two monks Storatius and Theodorus, and they're like, hey,
teddy storry, come on, and when do you need your help.
The two, the four of them that go together, they
pull a holy heist. They steal Saint Mark's bones. Plant
is super simple. They procure another body because they're like, look,
if we just take the body, people will know they're

(13:25):
just like a clean spot on top of the mausoleum.
Or we gotta like leave a body the more similar.
So they had to find one in a similar state
of disrepair. Once they got a body that you know,
matched up, right, then they go and they take that
and swap it with Saint Mark's bones and then like
you know, this is like not easy to do in
the year age twenty nine. Actually it's probably really easy
to do to find a body in the year A

(13:46):
twenty nine. Anyway, once they got the decoy bones secured,
they break in, they swap out the bones for the
holy bones of Saint Mark. Then they make their flight
from Egypt. Right. But first like they're like, they're like
a bunch of biblical patriarchs, like, how do we get
the hell to Egypt?

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Right?

Speaker 3 (14:00):
But at the same time they have they know the answer,
which is, we got to go down the harbor. We
got to get back on our boat. But you know,
harbors were you know, monitored. You had to tell people
what you were here. You got to show a ship's
manifest So how are they going to get the boat
the bones by? Like, what's up with the bag of bones? Bro.
So at this point, the Egyptian port authority they want
to inspect the goods and wears getting loaded on, So

(14:22):
where are they going to hide the bones of Saint Mark? Well,
the port authorities they get tipped off by this strange
scent of bones, apparently that's the story that I heard.
I think it's the smell of decay yea. Anyway, so
they go what's that smell? Essentially right, and they're like,
you got to open up all the barrels, the crates,
and so they start cracking stuff open and they don't

(14:44):
find anything except for a bunch of pork, like salted
pork and so forth. And they're like, oh, oh yeah, sorry,
I don't dig on swine. So they're like, you can
steal that back up, they don't go digging into the pork.
And that was the way that they snuck Saint Mark.
The egypt is underneath a bunch of moldering port.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Go.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
This is just bad. I'm bad. I'm batch anyway, being
familiar obviously with these Muslim dietary customs, they were able
to pull off a successful furtum secra. Right, yeah, no,
holy heist. They weren't always such a seat of your
pants swillers. Sometimes they were a little more hands on,
or is the case maybe teeth on. For example, in
the late eleven hundreds, there was a bishop named Bishop

(15:21):
Hugh of Lincoln, and he was kind of jealous of
the monks down at the Abbey of feet Comp in Normandy. No,
Bishop Hugh of Lincoln was apparently not worried about his
eternal damnation. He goes down to the Abbey of fan
Comp and that's the final resting place of the hand
of Mary Magdalen. Oh right, As you know, Elizabeth, some
Catholics believe that Mary Magdalen escaped the Holy Land after

(15:43):
the crucifixion of Jesus and then she like cut across
the Mediterranean Sea and she landed in France.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Right.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
If you've seen the Dan Brown movies with Tom Hanks.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
So good the haircut, he.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
You know, Allegedly, Mary Magdalen didn't just flee the Holy Land,
but she left in order to protect the child she had,
because Jesus's girl or his daughter. They landed the south
of France and they start the Merivingian line essentially right
now anyway, whether you believe all that or not, why not?

Speaker 2 (16:09):
You know I've said this before. I believe absolutely anything.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Now keep it, keep yourself open. I believe things that
contradict each other.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
I contain multitudes.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Whether you believe all this story about Jesus having a
daughter in south of France, why not. Many of the
French Catholics did, right, So in the Abbey fan Holmp
they kept the hand of Mary Magdalen.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Is like, believe this totally.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
So the Bishop Hugh of Lincolne, he shows up right
and when he asks to see the holy relicant venerated,
he gets brought to the reliquary and he's shown the
hand of Mary Magdalene, which he then venerates with a
respectful kiss, like you would like on the Pope's ring
or something. Right, Only his kiss wasn't meant to be
respectful at all, because when his lips touched like the
decrepit bear skin of the hand of Mary Magdalene, bishop

(16:55):
parts his lips and he bites off the piece, yes
a little for the Bishop Elizabeth, and then he pockets it.
He made a new relic. So when the Bishop was
confronted about what he'd done because people were like, did
you just bite Mary Magdalen's hand? He's like, but what

(17:18):
like secret in his he had an excuse ready. He
told anyone who questioned his relic theft that there was
no relic on earth that could be considered more holy
than the body and blood of Christ, which, if you
think about it, he let pass his lips each and
every Sunday. So what's a little Mary Magdalene to go
past his lips? He's like, you know, if I bite
off a little digit and that's who can judge me.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
He's like, that's like the third holiest thing that's spent
in this mouth. Exactly what a freak.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
So I don't mean it's that great grocer crass. But
relic theft was big business Elizabeth in the medieval period,
but also really weird. Right to keep those two things
in mind as we go through more stories, like, for one,
there was a Pilgrim's bouncing all around Europe, right, and
they would just pay to visit and pay their respects,
So you got all this loose money again, so keep

(18:05):
that in mind as well. So he's like, how is
this happening? There's a lot of loose money slashing around
now if you think about it. Also, a single saints
body can be broken up into many many relics, as
I pointed out with the bishop biting off a piece, right, yes,
so is keep that in mind as well. Now, also
like the true Cross which you mentioned earlier, that Jesus
was crucified on the early Roman emperor Constantine. He had

(18:29):
his mother, Saint Helena go traveling around the Holy Land
identifying holy site. She finds the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
she finds the True Cross. That's her like her real
big get is like, oh I found.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
The cross that almer right there.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
No, we've joked about it before, but the splinters of
the true Cross or sprinkled.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
All over her. There's so many.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
There's like in every church. There's so many churches that
have like a little piece of.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
The to just like watch them all like massa to
themselves back together into the cross.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Like a supercross, like outside of a Texis auto dealers.
Like just like the size of those flags.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
At the end the end times they all love it take.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Like a small forest of crosses.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Just what if it actually what if they are like
a jigsaw puzzle and it is appropriate human sized cross
and everyone's been telling the truth this whole time.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Once again, I believe both. I believe because I don't
have to. I believe the an answer exactly. So, uh,
you know, maybe it was.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Maybe it wasn't sure, I don't know, I don't wait right, So.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Uh why this is why belief requires faith, Elizabeth, Exactly. Now,
now that we got this ball a rolling, let's take
a quick break, and when we're back, we'll get into
more outlandish medieval era relic bets. A lot of these
could be movies. I'm just saying, keep out there, back
into it too, number back, Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Are I need to really quickly get I want to
say to sister collect Carol, I am so sorry, and
you used to get me in trouble all the time.
I noticed how I phrased that she used to be
because of what she said are my quote muttered comments
from the back of the room. And so we all
saw this coming, sister Collette. But I don't mean anything

(20:27):
by this same personal so send that out to everybody
up there. I don't mean this is just Joshin's.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
And a ditto for me. So you're writing now to
dive deeper into the century long tradition of blok theft. Yes, good, good,
So this brings us to our next big holy relic theft. Elizabeth,
have you ever heard of Saint Foi?

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Saint foy y e f o y.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
I was not familiar with her game.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
No, oh, it's it's she, Yeah, same.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Foy was a Roman girl who lived in the late
two hundreds and early three hundreds. She Fory Saint Foi.
She was born into a noble family in a town
called ajin age N in France. And at the time,
the Roman emperor was Diocletian, and he was known for
like violent repression, the persecution of the early Christians. He
was one of the last emperors to really be like, no,

(21:18):
f them Christians, right.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
He was one of the rock and roll bad boys.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, exactly, feed them to the lions, you know. So,
Saint Foi she gets caught up in Diocletian's wave of persecution.
She's arrested for practicing her faith. She refuses to renounce
her belief in Jesus Christ. When she's brought before the
Roman prefect of the area, this man named Dacian, she
gets questioned by him. She gets interrogated. Saint Foix, praise aloud,

(21:43):
Lord Jesus Christ, you, who always aid your own in
every circumstance, be present now with your handmaid, and supply
acceptable words to my mouth which I may give in
answer before this tyrant. Now, this anger is the Roman prefectation,
and he demands that you know you reject to church
right now in front of me. I want to hear
the words coming out of your mouth right and this

(22:04):
is like, you know, it's a major no go for
Saint Foy. She's like, for the name of my Lord
Jesus Christ, and I have been prepared not only to
be threatened, but to suffer all kinds of torments.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
All the slings in the arrows, right, yes, you know,
She's like, I'll fring it up.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
So the Roman Prefect's like, okay, bet so he's like,
I got torments to go. So same boy. She has
to call upon God's protection because she makes a sign
of the cross her forehead or mouth or heart, and
then she's tortured. We won't get any of that because
I don't know if this counts against our ninety nine
percent murder free guarantee. But let's just say making a
saint probably does qualify for all one. So she gets

(22:43):
martyred in the year three oh three. At the time
of her death, she's twelve years old. A twelve year
old girl did all that, stood up to Rome to
the point of death. Like I'm telling you, rocking hard
and the same foid seriously. After her martyrdom, her belongings,
especially those but she had, you know, to touch her skin,
they get hidden away as whole relics. And in the
fifth century, this basilica gets constructed because at this point,

(23:05):
you know, the Roman Catholic Church has been formed and
they're just building basilicas and anything that's like, oh, especially
for the early Christian saints. They're like, let's let's make
a memorial hair you spread the faith, give people somewhere
to stop on their walks, right, So they make up
basilica for her. It's constructed to house her relics. She
becomes the patron of Ojen and her feast day Elizabeth

(23:25):
October sixth, Okay, is not the end of her story.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I was just looking up that she's the patron saint
of pilgrims. Yes, are you going to talk about this?
The prisoners, soldiers and those suffering from eye diseases.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yes, she was good. I'm curing blindness and getting people free.
Those are her two p I love.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
When they throw in like you know all these people
plus you know dyspepasias exactly. Oh yeah, this is.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
So. The year is eight nineteen. A monastery is founded
is constructed in the town of camp in France. The
monastery is originally like this quiet repose for spiritual reflection,
just a few brothers hanging out praying all day. But
what they what they realize over time is that no
one's coming out to see them. They don't make the
best wine, they don't make the best soap, right, and

(24:13):
so what they also clearly lack is some holy relics. Right,
So the brothers start talking. Time passes. They don't have
any money, so they're like, how we're gonna get some relics?
Right that? Can we pray on it? Should we ask
some people like hey, would you want to bring us
a relic to be like trade with another monastery? Like
nobody likes our soap, nobody looks her wi right. So
the year eight sixty six, some monks they get their
minds around the idea of like okay's let's expand the

(24:36):
idea of what is a legitimate way to get a
holy relic? Right, So we need something to encourage some
pilgrims to come out here to make a track to
the monastery.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Right.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
So they also want to basically put because at this
point it's it's kind of a way to put your
your name, like your town on the medieval map. But
you get involved because it's basically they're making the maps.
So they're like, yeah, stop here, you don't have anything.
They're like, oh, if you run into it, good luck.
But anyway, so the monks, they attempt to get their
hands on the relics of Saint Vincent, right or Saint
Vincent now the Indie Darlings, not that I don't mean

(25:06):
the Indie Darlings singer songwriter, right, not Saint Vincent, but
a Saint Vincent right now there's also uh, he's the
og Saint Vincent of Saragosa.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Well now they make like a if they're again they're
trying to trade wine, brandy, like what else do we make?
Do we do any woodworking? Nobody wants anything from them,
so they can't get any relics. When that fails, they
try to arrange a deal for these relics from the
other Saint Vincent, Like they go like, woy about Saint
Vincent too, So they go with a Saint Vincent Pampa Jack. Right,

(25:37):
They're like, how about he like he's got two names,
hook it up, right, and and he's the he's in
the town of Ogin, so like that should.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Be this is a local boy exactly.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
They're like, come on, monk to monk, hook us up,
just like break us off like a digit, just like
maybe like a knuckle right, and that fails. They get nothing, right,
So the next these the monks of this abbey and kunks,
they set their sights on some other relics in Ojin
because like that we've been around, we've been eying relics
in this you guys are you're rich with them, right,
So they have like like what about the holy relics?

(26:05):
The same boy, you know, the twelve year old girl
who was old boss, And they're like like, they're like, well,
what are you talking about? I don't know? So they
they can't. They they're trying to work on a deal, right,
they don't get turned down, but they really fixate on
her relics. Right, He's like that would be great because,
like you can point it out, she's good with soldiers, travelers,
that she can cure the blind. There's a lot of
like you know, blindness going around.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, head on over.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
And she also would get prisoners free, so people with
like hope, like oh my son got locked up and
in the city which I'm praying on it would free them.
Could put a word in they.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Should have sold some dirty limericks to raise the money.
Why not?

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Good move. So at this point, like the monks are like,
we need to get some of this for ourselves. So
we can get our hands with some relics the same void.
We could turn this monastery into a real draw for tourists.
Doesn't matter how bad our wine is, it doesn't matter
how bad our soap is. They'll come just for that.
So they come up with a plan. Enter a monk
with crime on his mind. There's this monk named Eronistus, right,

(27:05):
He's part of the Order of Monks and Conks. And
he then he's like, okay, I'm gonna go deep cover
on this. So he transfers to work in Ojen. Right,
He's like, okay, they I'll break off a bone when
I get a chance, right, So he's there, he joins
their monastery. He labors it's just another monk, just brother Eronistus,
And meanwhile he's working on his secret plan. But he's

(27:25):
like crazy Elizabeth, He's like the forty seven roner and
he takes his time, He like waits for it. So
this guy ends up waiting because he's got like, you know,
real devotion and patience because he's a monk. He waits
ten years to put his plan in emotion. Finally, Aeronistas
spends after a decade, working at this other monastery deep
cover the whole time. Yeah, he works his way up

(27:47):
the ladder till finally he's the one in charge of
the reliquary in the basilica. So now he's like, oh,
I can just take my pick right more I want.
But remember everyone's still fixated on same voice. He's like,
I to get a break off some saint FOI. So
this loyal brother monk Aeronistus biden his time. His treacherous
moment comes up right because as the guardian of the relics,

(28:09):
he's like, this is an act of providence, This is
proof that God wants me to do this. Sure he
comes to He's like, it's a sly wing from God.
God is basically saying, brother, you got this.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Oh I get it.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
God, You're right, Angel's wings. You will float back to conks.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Think too, about like how impressed we get with criminals
who planned for like a month.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Working as a monk, just back breaking labor. So you know,
once aeronistas he's named the guardian of the Church of Treasure,
including Saint Foi's tomb, it seems the right moment to strike, right,
so strike he does. The date for his holy relic
theft is he picks the Feast of the Epiphany, because
remember he's like God's on the sage. Yes, he picks
January fourteenth, in the year eight sixty six. But rather

(28:52):
than me tell you about the theft of the skull
of Saint Foil, Elizabeth, close your eyes.

Speaker 5 (28:57):
I want you to picture it.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
It's a quiet night in the month of January the
year eight sixty six. When the sun rises, it'll be
the Feast of the Epiphany, a key holy day on
the calendar. But for now, it's still the small hours
of the morning when everyone in the abbey is asleep,
everyone but you, because you Elizabeth, are the criminally minded
monk Eronistus. Yes. Dressed in your sackcloth tunic, you creep

(29:28):
through the stone floored abbey, your open toaed leather sandals.
Take tentative steps, careful not to make too much noise
or any sort of rhythmic sound of walking that might
wake someone.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
You creep along the corridor. You've waited not just days
or weeks or even months, You've waited years for this
fateful night to come, and now it's here, the night
you plan to steal the skull of Saint Foi. After
making your way from your personal chambers down the stone
walled and stone floored corridors, you finally arrive at the
marble Mausoleum, where the saint's skull is kept. You pause

(30:00):
a moment to make sure no one has followed you.
Hearing nothing but your own measured breathing, you decide to
go through with your plan. You've stolen a workman's hammer
and secret it away for your tonight's break in. You
pull the workman's hammer from your sackcloth tunic with a
tight grip. You take your first swing. The hammer strikes
the marble mausoleum it's louder than you hoped, but you

(30:21):
have an answer for that. You pull out a length
of wool and place that folded over against the marble
to dampen the sound of your hammer strikes, and then
you strike again. A small crack forms in the marble.
You strike again, and again the crack grows. A few
more hammer strikes, and you break through the marble. The
hole is just large enough to squeeze your hand through.

(30:42):
You feel around and you find the skull of the
deer departed saint. You retrieve it and then drop the
skull into a small sack you're brought with you. You listen
again to hear if anyone's coming, if anyone's heard your
hammer strikes once again, You're breathing is all you can hear.
You walk off, hoping like hell no surprises are waiting

(31:03):
for you outside. When you reach the walls of the abbey,
you sneak out and you find no one is waiting.
You've gotten away with it so far. Now you need
to escape the town of Ojin and make your way
back to Konk's. In the dark and quiet of the night,
you walk off the woods that surround the abbey best
to avoid the roads even at this hour of night.
You walk for hours, You cross both hill and dale,

(31:26):
dark woods, dewy meadows. When the sun rises and the
bird song begins, you say a little prayer that the
Lord and Saint Foix will both see you through. You
decide to chance your luck and use the road to Conks.
At this hour of the day, it wouldn't be surprising
to see a monk out walking.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
After an hour or so on the road to Conk,
you estimate your halfway there, you see a stand of
trees with a shady spot, perfect for a short rest.
You rest your feet and weary body for a moment.
In the shade of the glade of trees. You sip
water from a pig bladder, and that's when you hear
a sound that gives you a chill of nerves. It's
the rhythm of horses galloping towards you from behind. You

(32:06):
decide not to look up, and instead you keep resting.
You can hear the horses drawn closer, closer, so finally
they're right on top of you. And that's when you
hear the horses slow from a gallop to a trot
and finally a slow walk. The horse's breathing feels like
it's right there above you, and you hear a man
greet you.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Monk.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
You look up and you spy what can only be
a search party. The men look like the sort of
ruffians and scoundrels that the church pays to do their
rough business. The lead ruffian eyes you suspiciously. He asks
where you're coming from. You tell them the truth and
say ajin. The ruffian asks where you're headed again, you
tell the truth. You reply, kanks, You're thankful that none
of the ruffians and scoundrels seem to recognize you. Inside

(32:47):
your chest, your heart pounds against your ribcage. You pray
the men can't hear it. The lead ruffians, still suspiciously
eyeing you, ask what business do you have in kok?
Here you have to deviate from your true but not
by much. You reply, I am expected at the monastery
and conque you meet with the abbot about such business.
The lead ruffian asks, Monk, gives your travels, have you

(33:09):
seen any thief, perhaps thieves on this same road? A thief?
You ask, as innocence you can pretend to be no,
I have not seen many men on this road. Should
I be worried. The lead ruffian laughs at that thought.
What could you possibly have to steal a monk? Yes, indeed,
you reply, without a trace of emotion in your voice,
just moral certainty. The lead ruffian gives you a once

(33:31):
over once more, scrutinizing you for any sign you might
be lying or not saying what you should be saying.
As he stares into you, searching for any flicker of guilt,
you give him the well practiced, flat affect of a
monk whose concerns are not of this earth. When he's
done giving you the once over, he seems satisfied. Wait
ride on, the lead ruffian exclaims to his men, and

(33:53):
with that the search party rides off down the dusty
dirt road, and their dust cloud falls away. You can
no longer see them nor hear them. You exhale your nervousness,
say another little prayer to the Lord and to Saint
FOI for protecting you on this holy mission. You grab
the little sack you have secreted underneath you, and you
once again start on your way to Conk.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
There you go, Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
I'm very proud of you.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Just pulled off the successful theft of the skull of Saint.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
Foil Did it, guys? I did it?

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Way to go eronistus. Now your favor walk to Conks
is not without more drama because recall that the holy
relics of Saint Foid, notably her skull, were known to
perform miracles. You mentioned them curing blindness. Well, that's exactly
what happened on the road to Conker. In the town
of Thijak, the monk Ernists he stops to eat skull
Saint Foi reportedly heals this blind man, restores his site.

(34:44):
Boom boom boom. Right, this is just one of the
many miracles that her skull would go on to perform
through our sainted body part. And eventually, when this monk
Aernistas he draws close to Conk's the other monks had
come rushing out to greet them. Now did you get
the holy skull of Saint Foi? Then they all travel
back to the monastery where they set up a new reliquary. Now,
if you're wondering how a bunch of monks could rationalize

(35:05):
the theft of this holy relic from another group of monks,
like yeah, no, no God wants us. This is like
what's their head been made? Justification? Well, the idea at
the time was Saint Foi herself gave her holy permission
for her skull to be stolen and moved to a
new sanctuary, because you know, like, did she appear before
the monks and give a vision and her blessing? Did
she communicate like through a dream? Yeah, great question, Elizabeth.

(35:26):
The answer is no, no way simpler than that. The
argument was the saint gives their implied blessing for their
holy relics to be moved and relocated if you're successful,
like because the same Foy would obviously not want the
monks to steal her skull, so she would oppose them,
and if they get away with its evidence that she
wants them to be the new guardians in Custodia.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Interesting you say that mine proved. I'd been thinking that,
like when he rips her head off and shoves it
in a bag, Like, how many indignities does this young
girl have to go through her short life and afterlife?

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (35:59):
And then I'm thinking, well, I guess if you become
a saint, if you're sanctified, you know that your body
isn't your own after that? And is it really ever yours?
Is it? What I mean? It is always yours when
you're alive, but after death, like what do you care
you're not there? Yeah, So I just think it's interesting

(36:19):
that because of their status as a saint, people aren't
thinking of any kind of proper handling or become a
thing dignified burials. It's yeah, you're you go beyond that.
You're an object and you're a tool of the faith
and of the church, and you know, besides you you

(36:39):
know what indignity is. Let's just keep it rolling, you
know how to how to face it?

Speaker 3 (36:44):
May just sat in terms of like like holy keepsakes.
Conks also that they were famous for a bunch of
other major holy relics, like, for instance, they were the
home to the arm of Saint George the dragon slayer.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Wait, they already had these or they had to go
get them after editor.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Right a little bit later around the same time, like
by eleven hundred a blood. Yeah, the exact arm that
Saint George used to slay the dragon. That's the one
the actually there it is, so yeah, anyway, it was
the skull of same foy that put Conks on the map.
Have to attract bigger holy relics. Right. They also had
Charlemagne's A. He had apparently he had a letter. He
had a golden alphabet created twenty four letters because the

(37:22):
used to be and the eyes of the jets, so
he had in Latin. So he had four twenty six.
They had the A, and all the rest are disappeared.
No one had No one knows where any of them
except for that day anyway. So so once the guys
get there, the monks are there, they're like, what are
we going to do for the reliquary? For like, how
do we honor Saint Foix? So they make this one.

(37:44):
It attracts like it's it's beautiful, right, and they you know,
it's it's built to make it look like a warrior
or you know, like a strong pose, if you will.
So at this point, uh, they start to attract pilgrims
and they're talking like you know, usually knights on their
to like to say, like the Crusades and stuff. My
favorite story of a blessing handed out by Saint Foid

(38:05):
involves a knight. He came to Conk's. He was seeking
healing and like relief, but for his herniated scrotum.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
No Elizabeth, he's not covered on her patronage.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
His balls were in a bind. He didn't know what
who to turn to. So he has this vision of
Saint Foid. She's like, yo, come to my to my
memorial and and like, you know, we'll fix that herniated sad.
So the Night travels to Conk's. Once there, he receives
a vision of Saint Foi and she instructs the Night
that he needs to find a blacksmith and once located,
he needs to ask the blacksmith to heat up a

(38:36):
hammer and then smash his testicles with the hammer, and
that would relieve his suffering. Yeah, I'm not making this up,
I swear to God. Sorry. He has his vigeon. So
he goes around Conks looking for a blacksmith and he
gets someone to hit him in the balls with a hammer.
And if you can believe it, like when he's like,
you know, he's uh, you know, fully at the idea

(38:57):
that smashing his balls with a blacksmith hammer will heal
his pain. He's convinced this will be a miracle. So,
you know, active faith.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Elizabeth a different plane with that pain, he can't.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Doubt a saint, the saints, your balls with a hammer.
It's gonna cure your pain. He's like, I gotta do it,
So try to imagine it. You have this medieval knight
seated on his horse. He's hired a blacksmith. He's heating
up his hammer theeric you.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Know it's at white yea yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
And so once his white hot, he's like smashed me
in in the sack, and just like Saint Fad told
me to do. The blacksmith's is like, just wear I
will not to be punished for smacking you. Most tend
to sack with my hammer, and the Knight's like, no,
you shall not be punished for doing the work of
the low. Now strike me in my ailing balls, right,
So the blacksmith winds up he brings that hammer down, Elizabeth,

(39:44):
But just before the hammer meets balls, the knight faints
falls off the horse. I'm like, sumps off the back
of the saddle, right, yeah, falls off the horse, and
according to the legend, the impact of the fall from
the horse cured his HARNI hated sack scrolled him. So yeah,
you go me cicle, Elizabeth. Wow, yeah, but I thought

(40:04):
you'd enjoy that take.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
It's gonna come to a twelve year old girl and say,
heal my private part. So he said, so she's like,
I know how you can do it. Set a hot hammer,
and then oh darn it. And Mary is looking down
and like, girl, I told you you stopped telling them
to times and then stop it. Okay, okay, okay, let's
take a little break.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
We'll let that last one ping pong around and your
unsanctified skull, and when we're back, we'll dive into the
long strange practice of relic that we're back. You ready

(40:58):
for more medieval madness holy crimes. Yeah, it's like a
Smurfs episode over here. It's for our next tale. More
than just nabbing a single holy relic, I want to
tell you the story of a pair of duns who
decided to steal the whole damn convent, all the relics inside.
We'll take them all, Okay, the whole damn building.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Now, imagine France in the days of the Maravingian dynasty.
I mentioned them earlier, So we're talking late sixth century,
so circa five eighty eight, five eighty nine, and we're
in Gaul which would later be called France. Because we're
before the Frankish Empire's really taken over the area, Like
there's no Charlotte's time. Then it's eight hundred, right. So
our story takes place at the Convent of Saint Croix

(41:37):
in the city of Poitiers, and our heroines are two princesses.
There was Princess Clotilde. She was a Frankish royalty like
the early progenitors of the family before they'd really made
their name, right, but they were they were doing it.
I mean they were like aristocratic, but they weren't nothing coming.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
They weren't like more people were talking about.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah, they weren't like you should name the country after us.
It wasn't that level yet, right. So she was the illegiti,
a child of King Sharabey of the Maravingian dynasty, so
legit king. But he didn't have a child with a
queen or like some kind of like second wife. No,
it was his side piece, a wool carter's daughter, okay, right,
so who he fancied, you know, he liked her, it

(42:16):
wasn't you know. So her mother was lowborn though, so
Clotild had no claims on the royal life, right. But
she gets raised at first in the castle so she
learned some lessons. But then soon enough, once she starts
to become like a threat, she sent away to live
in a convent. Right now, the bishop and the chronicler
of this early Middle aged period that we rely a
lot for this story is Gregory of Tours right now.

(42:36):
He knew Clotild personally, and he described her as having
like heirs. He's like, oh, she she kind of yeah,
she thinks she's cute. So he's like, you know, basically
she has the additive of a princess, but none of
the wealth or privilege. Let's help with her. Why she
acted so crazy? He directly said that she was quote
swollen up with boastfulness. I don't know why I made
a British. But then there was her cousin, Princess Besina.

(42:59):
That she was the daughter of King Chilperic and his
wife all du Vieira right ord Vera. Now, starting at
an early age, she loses her claim to royal life. First,
her ancestral lands are stolen from her at age seven.
Her new stepmother, this woman named fred Leagund. She she's
like the third wife of the king, and she's like,
you know, I'm bumping up the list, so she gets

(43:21):
the first and second like sent to the distant places.
So she because Marravinking kings could have multiple wives, Okay,
so right, it's like totally legit, totally cool, totally like,
so she wants to be number one wife. So she's like,
you know, I hear there's like a plague going on
in this other town. So she's like, like, how's Arles, right,
So she sends her to this town that's having a plague.

(43:42):
The king doesn't apparently know this, right, but the plague
is just rampaging this town. So she hoped that would
wipe her out. That doesn't do it, right, So then
she like, I was like, okay, She's like, now like
a Disney villain, right, She's like, okay, let me hire
some mercenary soldiers. So she like hires emotion and she
sends them to go kill Princess Sina and her mother
and her siblings. And let's just say I'll skip to

(44:03):
the chase. Things got hell of medieval Elizabeth in not
the Disney way, right, like ugly, bloody, it was bad.
We'll leave it at that because I want to keep
this from being another official situation. My point is Elizabeth
Princess Messina. She survives the assassination attempt, not everyone does, wow,
but she now loses her claim on her essessterral lens
officially right, because she cannot actually claim them. So she's

(44:27):
sent to live in the convent in Saint Carale with
her cousin, Princess Clotilde, and they both find their way
there too, broken, shamed, you know, ostracized princesses. Now, I
don't know what you know about life and a convent
in the year five eighty nine, but it was not plush,
I imagine. In fact, I go so far as to
say it was bleak. It smelled like wet wool, and

(44:51):
you know you're wearing handmade clothing and probably muddy leather shoes.
Oh yeah. And by the way, everything smells like pigs
and chicken, so there's that as well. Smells you. We
ask former Princess Bessina and her cousin, Princess Clotilde, and
they would tell you life in a convent in gaul
in the year five eighty nine was punctuated by and
I quote, starvation, nakedness, and above all beatings. Oh yeah,

(45:15):
oh yeah, of course, when there's a hierarchy, yeah, that's true.
So it basically in a convent, in the power structure,
it can be just as hierarchical as anywhere else. Right,
So once you get power consolidated at the top, like
a mother superior in this case an abbess, that person
can act like a tyrant, which she did. So Saint
Croix is run by this abbess, lubou Vira, and she's

(45:36):
she's like a total tire, right, So according to these
two princesses, she's also a little bit weird. And she
was allegedly inviting what they called strange men into the
cloistered convent to hook up with some of the nuns
and the hopes that they would get the nuns pregnant,
and so she kept these also she kept this other
man chained up in the basement of the convent. That's
what they were telling.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
By the way, it's getting weird what chained updowns, Right,
So the in.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
These folks in Gauls in the five hundreds, they were
like really getting super medieval with it, like we got
to do like chained up in our basis. Yeah, like
like you know how we're gonna make the the image.
You're the ones doing the thing where you're gonna reference
we're going to talk about in turies, Yes, exactly. So
this abbess, as I said, Tyrant, So these two princesses
have become kind of the anti heroes, right, They're like,
I don't endure this abuse, man, I'm not gonna take this.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:24):
So and as I said in Gaulish France, it's just
a lot of abuse. And in the days of the
Maravnkian dynasty, social abuse like this and mistreatment they were
interpreted as a form of violence, just the same as
if you've been slapped. Sure, so they respond in kind.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
So after being mistreated for long enough, Princess Bessine and
Princess Cotel they start a rebellion at the convent. They're like,
let's take arms, right, so it's a legit ups rising.
They get like forty nuns to back them. This is
a big convent, Like you know, that's enough that it's
like not it's a little a little bit less than
like say half the population or third population, but.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
You can overthrow it pretty easily, exactly.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
But it's a big that's a lot of nuns. Anyway,
in the year five eighty nine, they reject the authority
of Abbess Lubuvira and uh they formally announced their reprising
the rebellion. Clotilde Chip claims that she's gonna go tell
her father about it. I'm going to go talk to
the king, she says. I'm going to my royal kin
so they will know of our indignity. For here we

(47:20):
are based. I am tweeted, not as a daughter of
a king, but as this spawn of filthy slave girls.
She's like only throwing a little classism in.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
My critique, treating them like this is fine, but.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
How dare you fancy go? Isn't that right? Ladies? Right?
So Princess Bessieena and her army of nuns, they roll
forty deep. They march off to Tours, and they go
to speak to her father and his bishop, specifically the
main man, Gregory of Tours. That's why he writes all
about this, sure, and he like they were all confident
when they roll in talking about this mad abbess. And
she's got like a man in chains in the basement,

(47:54):
and she's like, you know, and they're like, what are you? Like?
What are you talking about? How bad are things? So
they brought basically medieval receipts amongst the army of nuns,
Elizabeth number forty deep. Yeah, some of them are young
nuns who are pregnant. They're like, how do you explain that, Bishop,
So well, basically, Abbess Mubivera, she was, as I said,

(48:14):
inviting the strange men to impregnate them. And they're like,
here is my evidence she.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Choose to get workers or something.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
I do not know. Basically, they kind of claimed that
she was like a medieval Jeffrey Epstein, you know, like
it was it was done towards okay. So unsurprisingly, Gregory
of Tours is like unmoved. He's like, you know, I'm
an old bishop. I've heard it before. I don't really
want to get involved. Princess Bessin and Princess Clotilde, you're both,
you know, shamed and ostracized women. So you click spoiled
brats and uh, you know, you believe you're still princesses

(48:41):
and clearly you're not, so get out of and so yeah,
he disabuses them of the notion that they're going to
do He's gonna do anything about their revolt at the convent. Meanwhile,
this relative and aristocratic woman in the count of King gutrum.
She hears they're poleas right before the bishop about having
the abbess expelled. Ye, And so she promises these princesses.
She's like, work, we're distant family, but I like your game, right,

(49:03):
So she's like, I'll promise, I will have I will
have your father send a royal commission to the convent
and investigate your claims. Right, So that and like the
will if they find what you claim, will remove the
abbess under the king's power.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
So the two princesses the army of duns. They agree,
they go marching back to the convent. But now when
they arrive, like you know, at the convent, they're not
welcome there. They've run a riot or rebellion. So they've
got to go down the road to another church and
they take over that church and like, this is where
we're going to hang out and wait for the royal
commission to get here. Yeah, And they wait and they wait, right,

(49:39):
and so meanwhile the abbess is like, I see you back.
How did it go in tours? And so the two
princesses are like, now it's cool, we saw a family,
you know, so what's up with you? You know, you're
still acting like a tyrant, and the abbess is like,
you know, the school, you and your little army and
your little church you you cannot come back around here,
so beats it right, and or I will have you
beat in. And the princesses are like, non, no, no, no, we

(50:00):
ain't stepping inside your convent, and we're gonna stay in
our church right where we are, so keep you, keep
our names out your mouth. And now the two princesses
they set up shop right. So they got this church
of Saint Hilary, and they have their rebel army of nuns.
But since this is like, you know, five eighty nine
forty nuns ain't gonna cut it as an army, so
they go being royal, they hire mercenaries or like, you

(50:21):
have to do what dad would do, so we'll hire
some men. So they bring in some men, and as
Gregory Tours summed it up, they basically hired a bunch
of outlaws and cutthroats and professional soldiers, or as he
called them, murderers, sorcerers, adulterers run the way, slaves, and
men guilty of all of the crimes.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
The sorcerers are the ones that I love.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
The flat totally got stars fall. So what happens once
the commission arrives at the convent, Well, nothing, because the
commission doesn't arrive. And then finally they send back word
and the commission doesn't come and the like. But then

(51:01):
after a long wait where looks like no royal commissions
ever going to show up, one shows up. It's just
the local bishops. They're like, they send us word to
come out here and check. So four bishops who were
like knowing that they're all implicated, they're all, you know,
like connected, some deacons, some local clerics, they roll up.
They're like, yeah, we're the commission. Church sold us to
handle it. So the two princesses are like this, no,
this is this is BS. So when they go to

(51:23):
arrive to talk sense to them, the princesses they're not
here in Elizabeth. So also the bishops are like, well,
if you're gonna act up at eye, Gregory of Tours
told us to excommunicate you. So you're excommunicated, and they're like,
what thank you?

Speaker 2 (51:35):
At this point, I don't want to be.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Do you see these stank ass men we got here
in this church? And they go like yeah, well you
should see what they do professionally boys, and then they
have them beat up the deacons, the bishops, the local clerics,
and then they don't kill them, they don't worry about that,
but they basically toss them out of the church like,
you know, like a country bar. Now at this point,
realizing they're on their own and their war now against

(51:57):
the Abbess, Princess Clotild orders are rb to go and
seize the lands of the convent. She's like, go take
their serfs and tell them their farm belongs to dust.
They get straight mafia with it, right, her army of
bad men only too happy to do this because remember
they're all cut in wizards.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
They're going to get paid until she this is how
they something exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
So they go, they pillage and they steal, and they
they loot right, and the convent surfs they fight back
because this is how they eat and this.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Is their stop right.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
So then winter comes, everything cools down for a while.
Both sides retreat to their respective convents, their farms and churches. Meantime,
King Guntram hears about this. He's like, ah, I gotta
go deal. So he's like he sends out a royal edict, right,
and he says like in his royal dude is basically
knock it off and keep my name out your mouth,

(52:47):
and that's it. This is like, no, no, it's not
what he means. He's just saying that publicly, so he
looks responsible. What he if you really read this, what
he's saying is keep fighting, because he didn't say sick,
you know, totally stop. He's like he said knock it up.
No no, no, no, you're not reading it right.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I don't know how I do what that normally means.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
In the court, it means something different. So winter passes,
springtime arrives. The years now five ninety. At easter, the
two princesses are like, oh, juiced up. They and the
rebel army of nuns and mercenary bad men. They decide,
let's settle for real, and they go and they attack
the convent and they're gonna take the abbess and drag
her out. Meanwhile, though, Elizabeth, because it has just gone

(53:23):
through winter, she's laid up. She's got a wicked case
of gout right. She's like, my ankles are killing me.
I'm not walking down these goddamn cold steps. She's hiding
out in the deep recesses of the convent. So this
is lucky for her because the two princes they order
their attack on the convent. Army of bad Man's attack.
They show up at night. Their tasks with grabbing the
abbess Lubivera right, and they abscond with her. But it's

(53:46):
not like they have a picture of her right. And
also it's like, you know, it's dark, there's candle light everywhere,
it's kind of hard to see stuff. They're moving fast,
so they grab the wrong woman. They grab a different woman.
They're like, she looked like she was.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
In charge and she looks important.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
They take her back, right, and they're like, oh, that's
not her, that's take her back to the convent. So
they go because it turns out that's Gregory of Tours,
his niece, and they're like, that's gonna be exting take
her back. Meanwhile, one mercenary did, like, I don't know,
on his own, like it's some kind of like Kevin
Costner like bid like I'm gonna go this way down.
So he's on his own going down the tower steps,

(54:22):
he finds the abbess suffering with gout and she's like,
you know, he's about to go full on medieval with her,
he's got to sword out. You know, he's gonna go chop,
chop chop, But he chickens out because she's clutching the
True or piece of the True Cross. Oh right, It's like,
I can't kill someone and one is an abbess and
two was holding the True Cross like my soul's going

(54:43):
right to hell. So he balks, he SLINKs off and
this saves her from like bloody death. Meanwhile, as I said,
the guys who grabbed the wrong one, they're like cot
tail and a scene are like, are you are you
kidding me? Do we have to go with you on
the raid? He's like, point her out? Do I have
to draw you a picture? Take her back? So they
take the Bishop of Tours Tours like Denise back right,
and so at that point when they're back, the mercenaries

(55:05):
are like, oh, let's just keep going till we find her,
So they search the entire combat that I don't want
to get yelled at again. So they managed to grab
the right abbess this time. They take her back to
the Church of Saying Hillary, the stronghold for the two princesses.
Then they locked the abbess in Princess bessin is like
personal chambers. You stay here because it's not like they
have like a prison. It's a church. So they and
then they have the men go back because now that

(55:27):
they have the abbess, the other nuns are all scared.
Some have run for the hills. They they go back.
The bad men steal all of the holy relics and
everything they can carry. They loot the place like vikings,
and they steal a piece of the True Cross. That
piece of the True Cross they get that too, and
you know, basically they get medieval with it. Like I said,
Now the second bishop and local bishop here's about this.
He's like, they got the true Cross. Oh man, are

(55:50):
you for real? So Bishop metroveis from Poitier where the
convent is. He orders local villagers and serfs to go
storm the church. He's like, get your pick axes, get
you to go out there. You gotta hate fork use
that right. So, uh, they go down to church with
Saint Hilary to free the true Cross. Because he also
says if they get the first they're like they're professional soldiers.

(56:13):
Some of them are murderers sorcerers in there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
So he's wearing so much crush velvet scares the children.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
So the guy's like, Okay, look, they may have the bishops,
like you know, they may have a mercenary army, but
we have our faith. And if you don't go down there,
I'm not baptizing anyone. I'm not offering no blessings. Don't
come to me for nothing. So he withholds this. He
doesn't like imbue it to them. He's like, I'm cutting
you off it. So they're like, oh, he's liked, go

(56:42):
free the abbess. So then they get the True Cross
and so they go down. Now, Princess Clytilde, she had
spent some time in the court. She knew the language
of power, she knew what to expect, she knew that
a new rating party was coming. So she orders her
men kill the abbess if anyone breaks into our church.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Yeah, right, And.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
They're like, really, like that's can the young guy do it?
So apparently this like it wasn't the one outlaw bad
man who's afraid of killing the abbess true Cross or
no True Cross, because this royal Ondoi shows up and
the guys just let him in, like just take her,
and then then she leaves with her. Then they're like
I don't. I can't be helped.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
I mean, she's a terrible person, but you don't want
that kind of trouble with the man upstairs.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
Right, don't put that on my soul, like poly walnuts.
And it's just like I'm dragging salty. So finally the
princess held uncle King Gutram. He intervenes again. He sends
his dude, Count Maco to this convent rebellion that's going
back in front now turning into a civil war. Different
towns and things are basically, as they said, getting medieval.
So he's like, all right, I need you to get

(57:41):
full of medieval. And so Count Macho comes down and
things get bloody, so we'll just skip past that part.
Tell anyway, the hired mercenaries they flee. Those who can
and still have legs they flee, and they head for
the forest. Other head for the coast. They flee. And
then the two princesses they get put on trial because
you know, they stole the whole convent, they started a rebellion,
they stole the true Cross. It's like a whole deal.

(58:03):
So the abbess she testifies against them. She denies, like
what strange men impregnating done. Who says this, these are lies?
Man in my basement, changed up, what are you talking about?
Because everything's gone, there's no evidence anymore, and no one's
are going against her because she won. So and she's like,
oh and the bishops and the and the deacons and
the people listen. They're like, okay, that innocent. So she's

(58:26):
innocent of the charges. They do it basically a double
trial because at the same point the princesses are guilty.
So they were like, okay, you're innocent, you're guilty. Yeah,
and they uh. At this point to the revolts over,
the local bishop formerly excommunicates the two princesses yet again,
and they're not impressed by this.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
If you've been excommunicated once and you do it again,
does that bring you back into the church, Like, I
think you've got to.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
Be recommunicated, And then, you know, I think it's a
back seat. Jesus slips around like you just you just
made a big three to six and my man, So
once they played the uno reverse card in the excommunication, right,
they then have now been excommunicated let's say seven times,
So now they're back to excommunicating because they got they
got ex communicated multiple times during the revolt. They just

(59:10):
kept trying there like it's not taking so luckily for
their eternal souls. That Princess Clotilde's father, King Charrabee, he
steps back in the picture. He's like, look, I will
personally unexcommunicate you officially, so he has his bishop unexcommunicate him,
and then once the princess has got restored to grace,
he's like, look, can y'all chill the f out so

(59:30):
I can like concentrate on, like, you know, controlling France
or will soon be France. Princess Messina, she was like, okay, fine.
She goes back to the convent at Saint Croix and
she doesn't really have a better option because remember she's
totally cut off from the royal line. Now, Princess Clotilde
had a little bit easier. She was like illegitimate, but
she's like family looks like you know, she basically had

(59:51):
like a great aunt. This is the dowager so Queen Brunhilda,
which is King Sharabe's mother, so I guess it's her grandmother.
She's like, okay, I'll give you some lands on my own.
So she stokes her out with like a Roman, like
a crumbling Roman villa, and like lands like a bunch
of serfs of her own. And so she just spends
her days doing like court dramatics and court intrigue from

(01:00:12):
her crumbling Roman villa. So she wins in one way,
and that's all I got. So that's as close they
get to a happy ending.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Huh. I like it. I'll take it. There you go,
I'll take it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Absolutely ridiculous relic thefts to the point you see the
whole damn convent. What's all ridiculous? Takeaway here, Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
I think it's interesting when you're talking about like the
historical context around all these I'm wondering if the back
and forth with a lot of the relic stuff is
just cover for other political intrigue and and uh, you know,
these are periods of time with which I'm not wholly familiar.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
There's also a lot of like showing you're in God's favor, right, Yeah,
that's really powerful politics. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Point, But if you have other reasons, ulterior motives to
make a move on someone, whether it's a another monastery
or something, and then you do it under the cover
of these these relics, you know, I think that we have.
It's always it's always I was gonna say it's always
dangerous when but I think it's just unavoidable that, uh,

(01:01:16):
you know, religion and faith get tied in with politics geopolitics. Wow,
I think it's just who we are.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
So, you know, I think that it's I would not
be surprised if people were using their their faith as
a cover for others.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
It was very political. I mean, Gregorators is very much
involved in politics. And because my ridiculous take away, thank
you for asking. With the fall of Rome, they're left
with like the roads, the villas, and the you know,
the various wells and canals, and you know, the ability
to like kind of like inhabit the architecture. And yet
they don't inhabit the political architectures. They don't have it

(01:01:53):
all worked out, so it becomes down to like who's
got power. Well, the church becomes this consolidating place and
you know, and they're also able to do labor, like
they have like you know, a mill, so that's where
you take your wheat to be turned into flour or whatnot.
You get the idea that it's like they become the
center of industry there. Once you merge organized power force

(01:02:14):
and send industry, I'm just like, oh, of course. But
then without the Roman decadence, this is what they do
is they just steal each other's body parts, and they're like,
this is Holy God's telling us to do this. So
it's because just as reckless as the Romans, but just
in a totally different way. It's like, oh, I got it,
I got your kneebone, Bro, everyone's bone.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Everyone's got a way to be reckless.

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Right, So there you go. Now you the move for talkback.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
I am truscy D.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
Can you throw one on the wax? Oh? Oh my god?
Did you just see that?

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
I let get okay, this is my second try.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Uh. Lady host Elizabeth and Zaron, I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Love you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Your banter is so great. Elizabeth, you are a punk
rock fan.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
I love that you mentioned Balancing Souls, one of the
best albums ever.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
I love you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
By It's over, we love you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
That was great. It's like he was like in a
room with it escaping oxygen. He's like, yeah, I gotta
use bro, I have to get out this message.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
I'm glad that we were the last gasp on that one.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
I love it, so thank you for that. As always,
you can find us online Ridiculous Crime on social media
and now we have the account Ridiculous Crime Pod YouTube.
Go check that out. That's pod pod with the Ridiculous
Crime at up front. We have our website Ridiculous Crime
dot com and uh we have if you can go there,

(01:04:01):
take a survey, tell us about yourself. We'd like to
check you out here about you, or you can just
check out the Museum of Gifts. Very enjoyable. As always,
please go to the talkbacks the iHeart app. Download it,
leave a talkback and we'd love to hear your voice here.
Maybe you'd like to do it, so do it. Go
download and do it to talk back. Thank you for listening.
We will catch you next. Crime I Think It Was

(01:04:28):
Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Pier, produced
and edited by our resident sainto Providence Dave Couston, and
starring analyst Rucker Is Judith. Research is by the educated
historians of our Abbi Marissa Browne and Jubari Davis. Our
theme song is by our resident house band, The Syncopated Saints,
Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by Bobby,

(01:04:49):
five hundred guests, hair makeup by Sparkleshott and mister Andre.
Executive producers are the proud owners of John the Baptist,
Good Here, Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Ridicous Crime, Say It one More Time Ridiquious Crime. Ridiculous
Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from
my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.