ARCHEOLOGY
Archeology is the study of finding things that our ancestors hid in the earth. No one knows why people buried their belongings in the past. Perhaps they were afraid of burglars, but this is contradicted by the fact that many of these items were garbage (arrowheads, pieces of shoes).
It is very possible that they hurriedly buried everything they could get their hands on, without even checking what it was, because someone in the castle noticed that the thieves were already approaching the gates. In the times of pirates, highwaymen and Robin Hoods, you couldn’t trust anyone. Everything had to be nailed, and even then you couldn’t be sure whether someone wouldn’t break the nails and bury them.
Some people, such as the Romans, went a step further and buried themselves using volcanoes. While it remains a mystery why people buried things (including themselves), the fact that they did helped us understand what our ancestors were like: a little crazy and willing to bury their belongings. Without all this digging in the ground, history would only be made up of words written on paper or parchment, which would make it much more boring, because at most you could read about the old crown, instead of putting it on your head and parading around in it, which, I suppose, archaeologists do without ceasing.
The most famous archaeologists of all time are Tony Robinson and Indiana Jones. Interestingly, they both either wear this particular type of hat or have a friend who wears one. This is one of the characteristic features of archeology – this hat. Therefore, if an archaeologist loses his, he does not hesitate to dive into a crumbling temple for it. Tony Robinson’s friend does it all the time.
Nowadays, the only people who still bury things in the ground are dogs. Maybe this means that our ancestors were actually dogs? If we dig long enough, we may eventually find key evidence that everyone was a dog in the past. Perhaps there are lots of old bones lying underground somewhere. Unfortunately, until someone digs it up, everything I described above remains only a hypothesis. Science is a harsh mistress.
MOZART
In the entire history of music, no composer has written as many songs as Wolfgang “Rock Me Amadeus” Mozart.
Mozart was born in 1756 in Austria, which was then called differently. At the age of three he learned to play the piano, which was also called differently at that time. Mozart quickly gained a reputation as a child prodigy, and people probably would have started confusing him with The Prodigy (which literally means “prodigy”), were it not for the fact that The Prodigy was created over two hundred years later. Thanks to this happy coincidence, Mozart did not have to dissuade himself from obsessions. asking him to play the piece Firestarter on the harpsichord and he could go about his daily composing activities in peace, which gave him more time to come up with such hits as The Figurehead’s Wedding and Piano Concerto No. 21.
At the age of five, little Mozart wrote his first pieces of music, and composed his first symphony at the age of eight. This is amazing because instead of spending time composing, he could ride a bike or climb trees like any normal child his age. His parents sent Mozart and his sister on a concert tour around Europe, during which the siblings performed their hits at courts in Prague, Vienna, Paris, Munich and London. It’s not really clear why they insisted on performing under a cloud. Perhaps they hoped that a music label executive would pass by and sign a recording contract with them.
When fourteen-year-old Mozart wrote his first opera, it became clear that he was completely abnormal. This was proven by the fact that he was fourteen and was able to listen to opera. Something had to be done with this guy. So he was offered a job as an organist, but that didn’t stop him from compulsively composing new melodies. He was spewing out more and more music, as if he had diarrhea and was coughing up notes. Finally, poor and exhausted, he lay down in bed to die.
Because he couldn’t stand without writing music even on his deathbed, he set about writing his most famous and last work called Requiem, which is a very long Latin song about dying. It was something like an 18th century version of Stay Another Day East 17 and would certainly have been used as background music in a John Lewis Christmas advert, if only Christmas had been invented then. Unfortunately, Mozart did not have time to complete it and she died with him in 1791. He himself lived only thirty-three years, the same age as Guy Fawkes, who also left his greatest work unfinished – blowing up the Parliament.
MIDDLE AGES
The Middle Ages is an era whose name did not come about by accident – it was named so because it began when the Earth reached its middle age. This was 1,600 years ago and 4,539,998,400 years after the discovery of Earth. Hence we know that the Earth will cease to exist in the year 4,539,999,400, which is useful information if one is in the habit of making long-term plans. Recently, during two particularly boring weeks in Lowestoft, I discovered that the calendar on my phone ends in the year 292,471,210,647, about 288 billion years after the Earth ends. We’ll probably all be living on Mars by then. Or on Bounty. Or on something else, whatever will last until then.
Knights and castles
Some time after the British had managed to evolve from primitive, grunting cavemen into people who dressed in sacks and lived in shacks, the Middle Ages came and the inhabitants of Great Britain evolved even further – they began to wear metal clothes and lived in large, fortified houses. These new Super-Britons were called knights and their houses were called castles.
In the age of knights, everyone became like Robocop. It was somewhat reminiscent of the change in the appearance of London policemen, who used to wear soft jackets and funny helmets, and now are dressed in knife-proof vests and armed with semi-automatic submachine guns. Medieval knights willingly took part in tournaments, because by fighting in a tournament you could warm up, which must have been very tempting for anyone who was usually cold in a suit made entirely of sheet metal.
Kings built castles. Medieval castles were very prestigious because they were large. What gave them prestige was the fact that it was difficult to get to them – in this respect they resembled modern fashion shows or those elegant restaurants where the entire menu is written in a foreign language and you have to talk in a low voice at the table.
The main task of the knights was to guard the king. Knights were the medieval equivalent of the guys with headphones in their ears who hang around various VIPs nowadays. Knightly duties also included supporting good in the fight against evil, defending the weaker and being polite to women. That’s probably why Sir Jimmy Savile was never knighted.
Medieval entertainment
In the Middle Ages, Britain was conquered once again, but this time, for a change, it was not overrun by a foreign army or a plague of mosquitoes. This time she was taken over by fun.
Previously, there was no way to have fun in Britain – the list of available attractions included only war, stones and going to church. And suddenly everyone dressed up as figures from a deck of cards and the whole country began to resemble an endless Glastonbury festival, with performances by jugglers and jesters, with relaxation zones in the form of tents where you could play chess, and with a new invention, the so-called minstrels, or something like a medieval, inferior version of Mumford and Sons.
This is the true age of entertainment. There were songs you could sing instead of just listening to the monks wailing, “ommmmm.” There were games and activities, as well as stories other than those from the Bible.
The author of some of the best stories of the time was old rascal Geoffrey Chaucer. Although his name may bring to mind a foul-smelling math teacher, Chaucer was the most frivolous writer of his time. His work, like a park at night, is full of sex and poop.
Chaucer wanted to create a medieval version of the Confessions… series, which was to consist of, among others: Confessions of a Knight, Confessions of a Lady of Bath and Confessions of the Main Prologue. He gave his stories the collective title The Canterbury Tales. The most raunchy (this fancy word means the same as “pig”) was The Miller’s Tale. Its plot is as follows: a priest kisses the ass of a woman who has stuck it out of the window at a dark night; then the man sticks his ass out of the window and farts right in the priest’s face , and the priest retaliates by inserting a red-hot steel rod into his cocoa eye. All this is so rude that Chaucer, in order not to attract the attention of the police, had to write his work in a secret foreign language, using words such as “once upon a time” and “if ” which are probably anagrams of something so vulgar that even a sailor would spit in disgust.
Initially, Chaucer’s spicy stories circulated only orally. In the Middle Ages, most people were illiterate, so in search of entertainment they visited someone who could read or knew interesting stories. Just like today, when people go to pubs to watch Sky Sports because they can’t read.
The Canterbury Tales were so popular that they were not left merely as sounds coming from the disgusting mouths of peasants; have been remastered and released in better resolution, i.e. in the form of a book. Back then, books weren’t as useless as they are today. Like BBC4 and museums, there was plenty of stuff for educated people. When Chaucer’s crap was finally written down, people started reading it. And they probably started wondering where this damn world was heading.
Most of the other entertainment was based on cruelty. Public executions were especially popular, and they did not usually involve the quick infliction of death, as in the case of executions by electric chair (instead of which an acoustic chair was probably used in the Middle Ages). The convicts were killed slowly and in a complicated way, by strangling, cutting off or tearing out pieces of the body and dragging them around on the ground. Against this background, ISIS looks like Crowded House. People also enjoyed hunting bears with dogs and kicking each other in the shins. And when other entertainment was lacking, the resourceful man of the Middle Ages made do with what he had at hand and entertained himself with his club, club or spear.
In the Middle Ages, various games were invented that we still play today: gambling, alquerque, hacele and many others that you have also never heard of.
Philomena Cunk’s book will be published in Poland on November 22 by Insignis. Katarzyna Dudzik and Michał Strąkow are responsible for the translation.
Cunk about everything – cover Insignis promotional materials
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
