"Nice" elections and music to call the devil. 5 historical myths to forget about

1. The Bible is the first printed book in history

Ask anyone what the name of the first printed book was, and someone with a little bit of history will name the Johannes Gutenberg Bible.

But not everyone knows that Gutenberg, who started create thus books in the 1450s, was the first only in Europe, but not in the world. And much earlier, the Diamond Sutra, also known as the Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, was printed, cutting through [the darkness of ignorance] like a lightning bolt. It was created in China, and in the afterword to it said following:

"Reverently made for the general free distribution of Wang Jie on behalf of his parents on the 15th day of the 4th moon of the year Xiantong (i.e. May 11, 868)."

So the Chinese were ahead of Gutenberg with his machine by almost 600 years. True, their technology has not become mass.

2. Swedes chose burgomasters with lice

There is another interesting historical anecdote that is circulating on the Internet: about 100 years ago, with the help of lice, the Swedes in Gradenburg held the election of a burgomaster. Applicants for the position sat around the table and laid their beards on it. A louse was placed in the middle of the table. And the burgomaster was elected the one on whose beard she crawled.

This is democracy, right? Usually this bike is used when they want to say that all politicians are the same and there is no difference who gets the power. But belongs a quote not to a historian, but to the Soviet zoologist Pavel Iustinovich Marikovsky.

He researched mainly insects, and whether he should be trusted in terms of history is an open question. Most likely, Marikovsky borrowed this story from books "Rats, lice and history", which was also written by a zoologist - Hans Zinsser.

And he, in turn, took the story of the "lousy elections" from the memoirs of Pierre Daniel Hue, Bishop of Avranches. True, that action took place not in Sweden, but in the Dutch Hardenberg.

Editor of Bishop's Memoirs noticedthat such a practice was never there, and Yue came up with this joke for fun. So, you should not trust the election of the mayor to lice.

3. In the Middle Ages, they believed in a special set of notes to call the devil.

Triton in ascending order. Audio File: Wikimedia Commons

Triton in descending order. Audio File: Wikimedia Commons

You can find a bike on the Internet, allegedly in the Middle Ages they believed that a special combination of sounds - a musical interval of three tones, that is, a tritone, can cause nothing less than Satan.

No bloody sacrifices or complex rituals are needed - anyone who can play three chords in a row will surely cope with the call of the devil. And in Middle Ages this newt was considered so dangerous that it was banned by the church. And the one who would still dare to insert it into his work would instantly go to the fire of the Inquisition.

But this is a myth. It was popularized by rock musician Ozzy Osbourne in his book "Autobiography Uncensored".

Perhaps Ozzy took this statement from work musicologist Andreas Werkmeister, created in 1702. In it, the author wrote: “Mi against fa is the devil in music». But this is the earliest mention of the triton in this vein. There are no medieval documents confirming its prohibition.

Moreover, the triton regularly used in medieval church compositions. And the music theorists of that time did not disdain include him in his treatises. The devil was never summoned in the end, and no one was burned because of it.

4. Battle hatchet - the tomahawk was invented by the Indians

When you mention the tomahawk, hatchets immediately come to mind. Indians North America. But few people know that in fact this weapon was not invented by them.

The word "tomahawk" tamahaac, was used by the Indians to refer to any tools with a short handle - clubs, stone hatchets, picks, and so on. And they looked like this.

The classic hatchet made of metal, which we used to call a tomahawk, to America brought Europeans. This is nothing more than a grappling axe. It was used to cut the rope nets of the enemy when he tried to climb aboard.

And outside of battle, an ax is a useful thing: to kill a rope, prepare firewood, hammer a nail with a butt, butcher game.

It is thanks to the versatility that this tool is so fond of the Indians, and they willingly traded with pale faces in exchange for axes made in factories in England, France, Holland and Spain. The locals were able to import it only in the most primitive form - weighted and without eyelets. So from the Indians, the tomahawk literally has one name.

5. Edward II was killed by sticking a red-hot poker in his ass

The Middle Ages was a harsh time, but sometimes its horrors are exaggerated a little. For example, here is an episode that described Maurice Druon's The French Wolf.

Somehow the conspirators decided put away away from the throne of the weak and stupid king Edward II. They staged a rebellion and put the ruler in prison. And then they began to decide how to kill him without leaving traces of violent death. But how to do that? That's right, stick a red-hot rod in him where, when examining the body, they are embarrassed to look!

The story is creepy, but it's just fiction. Modern historians treat the tale of red-hot rods more than skeptically and agree that Edward II died in prison of illness - as early records state. If they helped him to go to the next world, then they did it by strangulation. A red-hot iron is certainly not the tool that can be used to commit a secret murder.

The stories about the shameful murder of the king with a poker appeared already in later medieval sources, the authors of which openly disliked the monarch.