r/AskHistorians • u/AutoModerator • Jan 26 '25

Digest Sunday Digest | Interesting & Overlooked Posts | January 26, 2025

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Welcome to this week's instalment of /r/AskHistorians' Sunday Digest (formerly the Day of Reflection). Nobody can read all the questions and answers that are posted here, so in this thread we invite you to share anything you'd like to highlight from the last week - an interesting discussion, an informative answer, an insightful question that was overlooked, or anything else.

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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jan 26 '25

We pause for a moment this beautiful Sunday to show some appreciation for those fascinating questions that caught our eyes and captured our curiosities, but sadly remain unanswered. Feel free to post your own, or those you’ve come across in your travels, and maybe we’ll get lucky with a wandering expert.

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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jan 26 '25

2025 is flying past, and its already the last Sunday of January. Time travel truly does exist as long as you want to go forward at a steady rate. But as always, we have plenty of material to keep you entertained along the way! Don’t forget to check out the usual weekly features, along with any special threads, upvote all your favorites and thank those hard working contributors.

And thus I come to a close once more. The thread is complete, my job is done, and I vanish back into the void for another week. Keep it classy out there history fans, stay safe, and I’ll see you on the FarSide!

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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jan 26 '25

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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jan 26 '25

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u/6DT Jan 26 '25 edited Jan 26 '25

When I was talking about the bone-eating, I didn't even talk about the discourse or some of "the societal 'givens'" at the time! (Please read the first post before continuing reading this comment or we'll both seem silly.)

Societal 'given': access to bread
These days we tend of think of burning crops (historical) or traffic blockades (current) for causing food shortages. But the burning of the windmills is significant. This is not just the destruction of the method to create a staple food, nor just the removal of access. Rebuilding takes meaningful time and resources to do, the funds generally came from the wealthy landowners and the church. Bread was and is a food across all classes, and the poorest classes at the most of it. Wealthy may eat bread with more ingredients, baked freshly for each meal, made with more expensive grains, and paired with butter, cheese, wine, and meats. The average Frenchman ate a bit under a kilo of bread daily.

Discourse:
The bones are from Holy Innocents' Cemetery that was located by The Church of the Holy Innocents. A great many wrote about it. It was viewed as desperate, sacrilegious and macabre, and lacking good sense. Pierre L’Estoile wrote that an assembly was called to address the starvation and when bone bread was suggested no one opposed (but those that ate it died anyway). Duchess Montpensier [Catherine de Lorraine] (Catholic League) held the bread in high regard so much it was referred to as pain de Madame de Montpensier. Several commented on both the ungodliness and infectiousness of eating corpses whose names are failing me at the moment. [small note: please also review charnel house at your leisure.]

Final thoughts:
The act of eating inedible or barely-edible substances in famine and other survival situations has been well-documented. Bones, sand, mud, clay, leather, bark, and known poisonous plant sources to name a few. When choosing between a chance at life and guaranteed death, most will choose a chance to live. While the Paris Siege of 1590 not generally considered cannibalism, the eating of old corpses and eating of humans is highly taboo. The shocking nature of it all is "good gossip fodder" and caused a weaving of old language into new. I imagine it also contributed to bias or stereotyping because acts that are horrific or shocking generally do, but I don't know of any resources or empirical studies to back up my imagination.

Language will always evolve over time and since dictionaries are descriptive not prescriptive, as time passes more is lost. Even in the Jack Spriggens story [mid1700s] that helped cement "grind bones to make bread" into collective memory does this. Fe fi fo fum I smell the blood of an Englishman the Fs can be traced back to King Lear [1606 or earlier], Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man. which can be traced back to slightly-older Have with You to Saffron Walden [1590s but after the siege] Fy, Fa and fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, and "fy fa and fum" was already old / well-known at that point.

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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jan 26 '25

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u/itsallfolklore Mod Emeritus | American West | European Folklore Jan 26 '25

Thanks for this!

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u/Gankom Moderator | Quality Contributor Jan 26 '25

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u/itsallfolklore Mod Emeritus | American West | European Folklore Jan 26 '25

A lot of myths this week! Thanks as always!