The Oddment Emporium
A Cornucopia of Eclectic Delights
![Lord Byron’s Mad, Bad, Fad Diets
Preoccupation with body image and the desire to emulate one’s favourite celebrity are issues commonly cited to exemplify the materialistic and vain era in which we live today. However, celebrity fad diets are nothing new. Renowned for his poetry, heading the Romantic movement, and living a life of scandalous excess, Lord Byron (1788-1824) is perhaps lesser known for his dieting techniques.
Byron had an unfortunate propensity for gaining weight. At University he fell victim to the ‘Freshman 15’ and, appalled, restricted himself to a diet of biscuits, potatoes drenched in vinegar, and soda water. He would also don thick woolly coats to sweat off the pounds, whilst following any incidents of binging with a glass of milk of magnesia, which has a laxative effect.
Fashionable early 19th century men would get weighed on hanging scales, as bathroom scales were not yet invented, and the London wine merchants Berry bros. and Rudd, have records of Byron dropping from 13st 12lbs in 1806 to under 9st in 1811. In 1816 Byron was living on only a single slice of bread for breakfast, cups of tea, and a vegetable dinner, whilst suppressing hunger pangs by smoking copious amounts of cigars.
Plump and healthy simply did not fit in with the image the pale, gaunt Romantic poets wished to convey, and Byron, being at the time hugely famous and influential, was seen as setting a bad example to young and impressionable of the age. As one doctor wrote: “Our young ladies live all their growing girlhood in semi-starvation [for fear of] “incurring the horror of disciples of Lord Byron”.
[Sources: BBC]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/cb3448f6062eea97e2c8cea201a15f53/tumblr_mogm2yr5vB1rnseozo1_1280.jpg)
Lord Byron’s Mad, Bad, Fad Diets
Preoccupation with body image and the desire to emulate one’s favourite celebrity are issues commonly cited to exemplify the materialistic and vain era in which we live today. However, celebrity fad diets are nothing new. Renowned for his poetry, heading the Romantic movement, and living a life of scandalous excess, Lord Byron (1788-1824) is perhaps lesser known for his dieting techniques.
Byron had an unfortunate propensity for gaining weight. At University he fell victim to the ‘Freshman 15’ and, appalled, restricted himself to a diet of biscuits, potatoes drenched in vinegar, and soda water. He would also don thick woolly coats to sweat off the pounds, whilst following any incidents of binging with a glass of milk of magnesia, which has a laxative effect.
Fashionable early 19th century men would get weighed on hanging scales, as bathroom scales were not yet invented, and the London wine merchants Berry bros. and Rudd, have records of Byron dropping from 13st 12lbs in 1806 to under 9st in 1811. In 1816 Byron was living on only a single slice of bread for breakfast, cups of tea, and a vegetable dinner, whilst suppressing hunger pangs by smoking copious amounts of cigars.
Plump and healthy simply did not fit in with the image the pale, gaunt Romantic poets wished to convey, and Byron, being at the time hugely famous and influential, was seen as setting a bad example to young and impressionable of the age. As one doctor wrote: “Our young ladies live all their growing girlhood in semi-starvation [for fear of] “incurring the horror of disciples of Lord Byron”.
[Sources: BBC]
The Potsdam Giants
The Potsam Giants were a Prussian infantry regiment composed of taller than average soldiers. After Frederick William I ascended the throne of Prussia in 1713, and began channelling more money into the military, an increasing number of taller men were recruited.
The original required heights was 6’2”. One of the tallest members was James Kirkland (above left), who measured about 7 feet tall, whilst another member, Daniel Cajanus (above centre) was estimated to be between 7’8” and 10 feet tall, and made a living exhibiting himself.
With the king needing hundreds of recruits each year, and once confessing that ““The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers - they are my weakness,” he began to take them by any means. He gave money to fathers of tall sons and landowners who would offer him their tallest farm hands. Foreign rulers would send him their tallest soldiers to encourage friendly relations and if men were not interested in joining, the king simply had them kidnapped. He even forced tall women to marry tall soldiers so they would produce tall sons.
The regiment never saw battle, and many would have been unfit for it due to the complications of their gigantism, but were made to parade in front of the king, led by their mascot, a bear, to cheer him up on his sickbed. He also enjoyed painting their portraits from memory and showing them off in an attempt to impress people. The regiment was disbanded in 1806.
![Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan
Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan isan 1898 novel by Morgan Robertson whose plot, which concerns a large ship colliding with an iceberg, bears an uncanny resemblance to the real-life sinking of the ship Titanic, which happened fourteen years later.
The most obvious comparison is the ships’ names, Titan and Titanic, whilst the margin between their dimensions (Titan is described as being 800ft long, whilst Titanic was 882ft) is strikingly narrow. Eerily, both ships carried only the minimum number of life boats, or “as few as the law allowed”, as it says in the novel. On both ships this number was not enough to save even half the number of passengers and crew onboard - which was, for both, (approx) 3000.
Whilst the press labelled Titanic “virtually unsinkable”, fourteen years earlier Robertson described Titan as “practically unsinkable”. Then, both ships, travelling at similar speeds (Titan: 25knots vs. Titanic: 22 1/2knots) struck icebergs on an April night, both 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Both ships sank.
In fact, it seems the only thing the tragic real-life story of the Titanic is missing, which the novel has, is an alcoholic protagonist who jumps onto the iceberg to fight with a polar bear in order to save the life of the daughter of his ex-lover…
[Sources: Wikipedia | The novel online | Thanks to Vintage-Royalty]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6ad288291f2ef7d6fd2f79d30fc5d29e/tumblr_mobvxk7y4o1rnseozo1_1280.jpg)
Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan
Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan isan 1898 novel by Morgan Robertson whose plot, which concerns a large ship colliding with an iceberg, bears an uncanny resemblance to the real-life sinking of the ship Titanic, which happened fourteen years later.
The most obvious comparison is the ships’ names, Titan and Titanic, whilst the margin between their dimensions (Titan is described as being 800ft long, whilst Titanic was 882ft) is strikingly narrow. Eerily, both ships carried only the minimum number of life boats, or “as few as the law allowed”, as it says in the novel. On both ships this number was not enough to save even half the number of passengers and crew onboard - which was, for both, (approx) 3000.
Whilst the press labelled Titanic “virtually unsinkable”, fourteen years earlier Robertson described Titan as “practically unsinkable”. Then, both ships, travelling at similar speeds (Titan: 25knots vs. Titanic: 22 1/2knots) struck icebergs on an April night, both 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Both ships sank.
In fact, it seems the only thing the tragic real-life story of the Titanic is missing, which the novel has, is an alcoholic protagonist who jumps onto the iceberg to fight with a polar bear in order to save the life of the daughter of his ex-lover…
[Sources: Wikipedia | The novel online | Thanks to Vintage-Royalty]
Victorian Women Breastfeeding
At a time when when modesty was considered fundamental in women, the above images depict an unlikely fashion amongst mid-19th century mothers.
According to Gwen Sharp, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nevada State College, ‘The use of wet nurses had never been as common in the U.S. as in Europe, and it became even less popular by the early 1800s; breastfeeding your own child became a central measure of your worth as a mother. ‘Cultural constructions of femininity became highly centered on motherhood and the special bond between a mother and her children in the Victorian era.’
Given that the images are daguerrotypes - the first commercial photographic process - the subjects do not appear quite as at ease as their modern counterparts might. The women and their babies would have had to sit still for approximately ten minutes while the image developed on a silvered copper plate - presumably a challenge with small children involved.
(Source: Daily Mail)
Queen Victorian insists on staring at a bust of her dead husband during her eldest son and heir’s wedding photographs. 1863.
(Source: Flickr / thelostgallery)
Cakewalk
“The cakewalk was originally a plantation dance, just a happy movement [the slaves] did to the banjo music because they couldn’t stand still. It was generally on Sundays, when there was little work, that the slaves both young and old would dress up in hand-me-down finery to do a high-kicking, prancing walk-around.
They did a take-off on the manners of the white folks in the “big house”, but their masters, who gathered around to watch the fun, missed the point. It’s supposed to be that the custom of a prize started with the master giving a cake to the couple that did the proudest movement.”
The Cakewalk was meant “to satirize the competing culture of supposedly ‘superior’ whites. Slaveholders were able to dismiss its threat in their own minds by considering it as a simple performance which existed for their own pleasure”
There is perhaps a pleasant irony in the fact that the slave owners would imitate the slaves’ Cakewalk not realising that it was already an imitation of their own absurd dances and were, thereby, mocking themselves!
EDIT: According to duh doy dorothy, who knows far more on the subject than I do, “slave owners knew cakewalks were simulating formal white dances, they just didn’t allow themselves to believe slaves had the ability to satirize consciously. White people didn’t cake walk until post-emancipation.”
[Sources: Wikipedia | Image One | Image Two | Image Four | Video]
![Courts of Love
In medieval Europe, when the complex rules of Courtly Love dictated one’s approach to the expression of love and admiration, it became necessary to establish judicial courts who’s sole function was to settle affairs of the heart. Though 19th century historians accepted the courts as fact, their existence has been questioned by modern historians who argue that they exist only in the realms of poetic literature of the medieval era.
Established in Provence in the 12th century and consisting of up to 70 women, either married or widowed, Courts of Love would gather to hear the complaints of lovers and decide on them according to the aforementioned rules of love. According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, one case submitted for judgement involved a lady who ‘listened to one admirer, squeezed the hand of another and touched with her toe the foot of a third. Query: which of these three was the favoured suitor?’ The courts would settle disputes between lovers, pass sentence on any lover in the wrong, and, in doing so, established a system of jurisprudence that would render the courts a last resort. Verdicts required the complete assent of all women present.
16th century historian, Jean de Nostredame, professes to have witnessed some of the rulings of the courts written in magnificent vellum manuscripts. He writes of cases where men and women who could not solve their own disputes “referred the matter for decision to the illustrious lady presidents who held open and plenary court [issuing] judgments which were called the judgments of Love.”
[Sources: Medieval Spell | Wikipedia | Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (p.323) | Image: ‘Court of Love’ (Flemish, 16th century) | See Also]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/64fdc767d6619d14d0ae246a65ff0e97/tumblr_mo59j3RWs61rnseozo1_500.jpg)
Courts of Love
In medieval Europe, when the complex rules of Courtly Love dictated one’s approach to the expression of love and admiration, it became necessary to establish judicial courts who’s sole function was to settle affairs of the heart. Though 19th century historians accepted the courts as fact, their existence has been questioned by modern historians who argue that they exist only in the realms of poetic literature of the medieval era.
Established in Provence in the 12th century and consisting of up to 70 women, either married or widowed, Courts of Love would gather to hear the complaints of lovers and decide on them according to the aforementioned rules of love. According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, one case submitted for judgement involved a lady who ‘listened to one admirer, squeezed the hand of another and touched with her toe the foot of a third. Query: which of these three was the favoured suitor?’ The courts would settle disputes between lovers, pass sentence on any lover in the wrong, and, in doing so, established a system of jurisprudence that would render the courts a last resort. Verdicts required the complete assent of all women present.
16th century historian, Jean de Nostredame, professes to have witnessed some of the rulings of the courts written in magnificent vellum manuscripts. He writes of cases where men and women who could not solve their own disputes “referred the matter for decision to the illustrious lady presidents who held open and plenary court [issuing] judgments which were called the judgments of Love.”
[Sources: Medieval Spell | Wikipedia | Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (p.323) | Image: ‘Court of Love’ (Flemish, 16th century) | See Also]
Broidery on a medieval page
Holes in the pages of medieval books are common. They were easily made (by the parchment maker’s knife), as in this wonderful case. Fixing it by stitching the hole together with strings of parchment is also common: parchment makers did it all the time, leaving behind “scars” on the page. What is totally unusual, however, is the repairs seen in this 14th-century book in Uppsala, Sweden. The damage is repaired, or at least masked, by good old broidery. It was done by the nuns who purchased the book in 1417. It is delightful to think that they took the effort to make a medieval hole disappear by replacing it with patterns like this, made up from pieces of silk in the most vivid of colors.
Pics: website of University Library Uppsala. More information about the preservation of this manuscript here.
(via historyishuman)
![Royalist Army Deserter Hand Brand
Branding tools were sometimes used to permanently stamp or tattoo army deserters or criminals. This hand-shaped example was made by the British Army during the English Civil War (1641-1651). The branding tool bears the initials ‘CR’ surrounding a crown. This is presumed to refer to ‘Carolus Rex’ - King Charles I. He was beheaded in 1649 for treason, after which England briefly became a republic after a decade of civil war.
This tool would have been used to mark ‘ownership’ of Royalist army deserters. The metal spikes on the hand are blunt. Perhaps they are dulled through use or perhaps it is deliberate to inflict more pain. However, they were likely heated first to burn the imprint in. Branding was abolished in 1829 with the exception of army deserters. The mark was then tattooed on the body, not branded with irons. The practice was totally abandoned in 1879.
[Sources: Science Museum | The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things (Facebook)]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/27290b788f0ef598c1f8df9a3c292297/tumblr_mo1d6rhbjN1rnseozo1_1280.png)
Royalist Army Deserter Hand Brand
Branding tools were sometimes used to permanently stamp or tattoo army deserters or criminals. This hand-shaped example was made by the British Army during the English Civil War (1641-1651). The branding tool bears the initials ‘CR’ surrounding a crown. This is presumed to refer to ‘Carolus Rex’ - King Charles I. He was beheaded in 1649 for treason, after which England briefly became a republic after a decade of civil war.
This tool would have been used to mark ‘ownership’ of Royalist army deserters. The metal spikes on the hand are blunt. Perhaps they are dulled through use or perhaps it is deliberate to inflict more pain. However, they were likely heated first to burn the imprint in. Branding was abolished in 1829 with the exception of army deserters. The mark was then tattooed on the body, not branded with irons. The practice was totally abandoned in 1879.
[Sources: Science Museum | The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things (Facebook)]
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