Two Historical Bugaboos
One of the things that bugged me back when MTW first came out after Shogun was the curious attitude that the game designers had regarding relics. It appeared that they had stumbled upon a Medievel Joke Book and taken it seriously.
So when I noticed the old Head of John the Baptist joke circa 1250 (and it is a joke in fact) I felt compelled to make a comment.
Back in the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire had provided enough stablility, coupled with the barbarians settling down into set kingdoms that the pilgramages to the Holy Land took off. With the rapid spread of Christianity among the now settled Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, and what not, the need for relics became intense.
You see, Catholic Churches, even today, require a bit of a saint to go into the stones under the altar in order for it to be a valid church. Well, the pilgrams were looking for relics when they got to the Holy Land and it didn't take long for the locals to note that they had a lot of old tombs in Palestine and lot of gullible pilgrams nosing about and a great trade in 'relics' began which kept up for 100 years, ending primarily with the Moslem conquest but likewise with the Church requiring a more rigourous authentication process.
Needless to say, one of those pilgrams who wasn't that dim was in the Holy Land during that period of time and he wrote about his adventures when he got back. During his visit, he was offered the head of John the Baptist. He, being from Spain, noted that the Head of John the Baptist was already in a Church in the Iberian Pennensula and informed the salesman of it's location.
"Ah," replied the salesman non-plussed. "Yes I am aware of that relic. But you see, they only have his head when he was 12. This is his head when he was a man."
So, no, in 1250 the head of John the Baptist when he was 12 was not discovered in Spain.
The second bugaboo is the 'secretly female' attribute of the Pope. There never was such a Pope.
Again, this is a joke, usually known as Pope Joan, coming from the 16th century or thereabouts. Again, gullible pilgrims are to blaim. The city of Rome was routinely deluged with pilgrims seeking to visit the Holy Sites in the city and an entire trade in coordinating the various groups to the appropriate Masses and festivities was built up. Sort of a proto-type tour guide service as it were. Well there was this very wide and attractive boulevard which never had a papal procession on it in spite of the fact that you could find processions on just about every other wide street in Rome either going to this church or that. And the pilgrims wanted to know why and sooner or later the Roman Tour Guides decided on a silly story to amuse themselves at the expense of the tourists. The Romans always had an appreciation for tall tales of this sort, in fact, one cardinal was dressed up as the 'new' Pope to stop an election riot during one conclave in the 14th century and the Romans went home and found out they had been duped the next day. Their response was to laugh about it.
Well the story was that this Pope, secretly a woman, had gotten herself pregnant and gone into labor during a procession on that street back in the Mediveal times and so, in shame, the papacy avoided that street. She had taken the name of Pope John (there were a lot of Johns in the Papacy and no one could keep them straight) and so was now known as Pope Joan.
The story pretty much remained in the undertow until it was picked up by one well known and famous folk and tall tale teller himself, by the name of Munchausen, who of course, turned out to be the father. At least that was what he said. And though everyone knew his tales had little foundation in fact, the 18th century in which he made his living was one of the most gullible centuries in Europe and given that Munchausen also was fond of challengeing those who publicly doubted his tales to duels (and he was quite a good duelist) the nobles who patronized him seldom could (or would) tell where the reality began and the fantasy ended. Needless to say, Munchausen's stories took on a life of their own and even today, he still pops up on occasion, such as that movie on him back in the 1980's by one of the Monty Python gang.
Needless to say, there was no Head of John the Baptist at 12 and no Pope Joan so if those could be removed from the mod, it would make it a bit more accurate.
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Originally Posted by ciciocle
