A Drop of History 128

A day in the life of a Milan duke
Luxuries that would make a modern tycoon feel poor

Dmitri Merezhkovsky, a Russian philosopher and novelist (who died of starvation in Paris during World War II) describes in his book Leonardo Da Vinci the life of a Milanese duke around 1500. His account has special value because it is the result of extensive archive study during a long tour of Greece, Turkey, Europe and the Near East. It is, in fact, a historical document of everyday life among the ruling class of the early years of the European Renaissance.

So, the duke, during an ordinary stroll around the workshops neighbouring his palazzo, where all sorts of artists that he patronised worked, would listen to the hagiographers talk about their art. The wood on which they would paint had to be old beech or fig tree, and it had to be primed with a good rubbing of powdered burnt bone. The bones used for that had to be hen’s wings, capon’s spines, or ram’s ribs and shoulderblades. Otherwise, the wood would not be smooth and glossy enough for a good icon. The paints were made by the artists themselves, using ingredients they collected themselves in nature. Indispensable ingredients were egg yolk, fig sap, water, oil, and wine. There was endless variation in details. If they wanted to paint young faces, the egg had to come from a town-bred hen, and thus have a lighter yolk. The yolk of eggs laid by free range country hens was suitable to colour older and darker faces and bodies.

The duke would continue his stroll, pass through his warehouses, cowsheds and pigsties, and end up in an outbuilding named “the home of giants”, which every respectable aristocratic home had. That was where all the creatures that amused the noblemen and noblewomen of the time lived, locked up in cages. Hounds, monkeys, parrots, dwarves, hunchbacks, negroes, madmen and epileptics, all piled up together in incredible filth. They were taken out according to the masters’ mood for entertainment. Of course, it did not even cross anyone’s mind that, for instance, dwarves or negroes were human creatures too. When a negro child was taken seriously ill, the duke thought of baptising him in order for him not to die a heathen, but then considered it too great an indulgence.

Then the duke and duchess would get to table, which, on an ordinary day, would include no less than thirty people. This is how Merezhkovsky describes an ordinary ducal dinner: “They started with fresh artichokes, brought from Genoa to Milan on horseback, fat eels from Venice, carp from the fisheries of Mantua and jellied capon’s breast. Afterwards, the main course was a huge boar’s head, stuffed with chestnuts and raisins. A whole stuffed peacock followed, with its magnificent feathers stuck again on its roasted body. As soon as the cooks put it on the table, it suddenly started to flutter its wings and tail, to the delight of the table companions. That was achieved through a mechanism hidden inside the peacock’s body, which made the cooked bird act like a living one. Dessert was a huge cake, out of which jumped a dwarf covered in parrot feathers, who was promptly snatched by the servants and locked in a gilded hanging cage in order to amuse the guests with his jokes during dinner.”

There were no forks on the table, only knives. The guests ate using three fingers, although at dessert there was a sort of fork brought in, gold with a crystal handle, which only the ladies would use. There were no napkins either; the guests wiped their hands on the tablecloth. They drank a light Sicilian white wine with the first course, then red Cyprus wine flavoured with cinnamon and cloves to accompany the meats. Before the duke drank any wine, the chamberlain would dip in his cup a special amulet, made by a piece of African rhinoceros horn on a golden chain. If the wine was poisoned, the horn would blacken instantly. There were similar amulets on all salt bowls. If rhino’s horn was not to be found, they used talismans of desiccated frog or snake’s tongue instead. After dinner, the guests would listen to some poetry recitations, eating gilded oranges drenched in aromatic Malvasian wine.

That was an ordinary day in the life of a Milan duke during the early Renaissance, a time when death of starvation, both in the cities and in the ravaged countryside, was a very common fate for the poor.

© Dimitris Kambourakis 2003, All Rights Reserved
Translation from the Greek © M.A.K. 2008, All Rights Reserved

A Drop of History 125

Prostitution (2)
When brothels were next door to churches

When Christianity prevailed in the Roman world, a solution to the widespread phenomenon of prostitution had to be found. Theoretically, its prohibition and condemnation were absolute. Besides, the fact that many pagan temples doubled up as brothels was one of the main arguments of the Christian theologians against older religions. But is it possible to eradicate prostitution from human society? Probably not.

Consequently, church officials decided to condemn the sin, but practically to look the other way. “We cast prostitution away from us,” they said, “in the margins of society, and whoever cares can repent afterwards.” Even special convents were created for prostitutes who wanted to get back on the straight and narrow. But despite the condemnation of sin and the glorification of virginity, there have been church fathers who, in moments of candour, were forced to admit the social utility of love for sale. Saint Anthony said: “Ban prostitution, and then immorality will sweep away everything.” Thomas Aquinas was more refined: “Prostitution in a city is like the cesspool in a palace. If the cesspool is removed, the palace will be choked by filth and stench.”

The most inventive of all was, later, King Louis XIII of France. In order to be on the good side of both the church and his lascivious subjects, he imposed the following incredible law: “All brothels must be situated at a distance of no more than 300 metres from a church, so those who leave the brothel can easily reach a church for purification.” I suppose that, when he drafted this hypocritical piece of legislation, all his political and ecclesiastical advisors exclaimed, “A brilliant idea, Majesty.” The Louises in general had a tradition of such brilliant ideas. Louis IX forbade his crusaders who marched on the Holy Land from taking prostitutes with them, because that was a grave sin, but he allowed them to consort with Arab prostitutes, because they were not Christian and therefore not subject to the prohibition.

The first municipal brothels appeared in the 13th century, especially in cities that were trade centres, where merchant caravans often passed through. Against the fear of wealthy strangers seducing local men’s wives, the communities themselves opened brothels, securing both their peace of mind and some extra income for the community coffers. In Florence and Venice, on the other hand, between 1360 and 1400, there were dozens of state-run brothels with a very specific mission. As diseases, especially the Black Death, had decimated the local population, the city authorities decided to offer prostitutes to young men, for a very low price, so they would get to know and enjoy sex and subsequently resort to marriage, which was a necessary step for the population to increase. It was a kind of state-subsidised prostitution.

In addition, it was common practice in the Middle Ages (tacitly condoned by the church) to encourage young men to go to brothels, preferring them to contra naturam practices like sodomy and masturbation. The Roman Catholic Church has officially admitted several times that it considers relations with common women a lesser sin than reviled homosexuality. The Middle Ages, as well, were the heyday of fair prostitutes, women who went from one local fair to another in wagons, in which they offered their services to the people gathered there.

Finally, there were the infamous camp followers, who were the worst of their kind. They followed the kings’ and nobles’ mercenary troops on their wars and raids and were responsible for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and other epidemics. The lowest of the low, they were ragged, filthy, and utterly ruthless. They looted the areas that the troops had raided, and they encouraged the mercenaries to rape and kill the women of the cities they took: camp followers hated decent women for their good luck to have homes and families.

© Dimitris Kambourakis 2003, All Rights Reserved
Translation from the Greek © M.A.K. 2008, All Rights Reserved

A Drop of History 122

Fags, booze and weed
Prohibitions and the breaking thereof in Islam

The consumption of any alcoholic beverage is taboo in the Islamic religion. However, like in all regimes and all religions, ways are found to bypass such prohibitions. The populace does it crudely, the rulers with more refinement. Prince Cem, the son of Mehmed II the Conqueror, had developed a theory all his own, according to which, if spices are added to wine, then that is no longer the kind of wine forbidden by the Qur’an, but something else altogether. Therefore, it can be drunk without violating religious law. Who would say no to the sultan’s son?

Following the same reasoning, in several rich Ottoman households boiled wine was served because it was believed (or at least wished so) that boiling reduced the level of alcohol and made it acceptable. Like the Catholic monks of Emmanuel Roides’ works, who renamed meat as fish on Good Friday and ate it without sinning.

In general, the proper middle class of the Ottoman Empire kept the prohibition, while the upper and lower classes did not. Turkish traveller and historian Evliya Çelebi (mid-17th century) mentions that he was present at a feast held in a Christian monastery, where all Christians drank copious amounts of Chian wine. The Muslims of the area, though, did not drink at all and had armed themselves as a precaution, because many revolts started after such feasts, when drunken Christians were not aware of what they were doing.

Alcohol was also copiously consumed by mercenaries, janissaries, and sailors, who usually indulged in piracy as well. All those were indifferent to the Qur’an’s imperatives, and that is why they were reviled by proper Ottoman society. In a document written by a Turkish pasha, commenting on his son’s decision to join a pirate crew, the father characteristically says that “such was the logical end of a young man who loved drink”. There were also religious movements that rejected the particular prohibition. The famous Mevlevi dervishes maintained a vineyard and winepress at their equally famous monastery in Istanbul, a fact confirmed by an official catalogue drafted in 1826.

Another great problem cropped up when tobacco from newly-discovered America reached the Ottoman Empire through Europe. The prophet Muhammad knew nothing of tobacco when he wrote the Qur’an, so the use of that new product divided both theologians and sultans. As is common in such cases, society was split into conservatives and liberals. Sultan Murad IV adopted an extreme conservative stance and forbade smoking on pain of death. As long as Murad lived, tobacco was under merciless persecution, but even such prohibition had no effect. The habit of smoking spread; users just smoked in secret. Demand always boosts supply as well, so tobacco started to be cultivated in isolated areas of Greece and Asia Minor.

A document of the Ottoman administration mentions a remote village in the Beyşehir district, whose inhabitants cultivated tobacco and had to be punished. Historian Katip Çelebi described the brutality of Murad’s persecution of smokers and tobacco farmers, and reported that such persecution abated only after the sultan’s death, leading eventually to the lifting of the prohibition and the hookah becoming an integral part of daily life in the Ottoman Empire.

Contrary to tobacco, the use of opium was not forbidden, although it was approached with scepticism. In 1854, before Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha was appointed Grand Vizier (that is, prime minister), there were rumours of him being addicted to opium, but that did not stop him getting the position. Opium was not smoked, but mixed into a sort of cream and eaten. The preparation and selling of that cream was taxed, so that the state could fill its coffers into the bargain. The damned state, in all times and places, always finds ways to profit from its citizens’ good and bad habits…

Opium was cultivated mainly in the Afyonkarahisar province, where the Greek forces stopped during the Asia Minor campaign. Evliya mentions that not only the men but also the women of the area were addicted to opium, and those even more so. He characteristically says that the men preferred to while away hours in the coffee house instead of putting up with their doped women at home.

Just like today…

© Dimitris Kambourakis 2003, All Rights Reserved
Translation from the Greek © M.A.K. 2008, All Rights Reserved