I had not heard of taking small enough bites that you can always respond to a conversation; that seems such a small amount that I must be the ape they abstain from being.
Well, if your liege ask you something, you should be able to reply immediately. It would be impolite to make them wait for you to end chewing. I remember in some of the musketeer books described how Portos had cut a big part of a boar while dining with the king and when the king asked him something, he had to swallow the entire piece.
English orthography also leads to endless stigmatisation of people who mix up the spellings of "their", "there" and "they're" or "you're" and "your" as if they were idiots or can't "think properly". Instead of the reality that they just don't display the class marker of having been drilled in this idiotic aspect of the writing system.
With me the issue is that being blind means that I listen to most words and the spelling is something which I don't always focus on unless necessary. Hence, two homophones are likely to be confused if not written often enough.
It says "A diner should not take so large a bite that he is
completely unable to speak, if he were addressed." which seems very reasonable. I can speak while having a normal sized bite in mouth, although it's of course less than ideal and not polite these days. But sometimes useful for shorter utterances.
I was a bit surprised that a twelfth century source would refer to apes. Possibly the word meant something else first and was later used for big nonhuman primates?
> I was a bit surprised that a twelfth century source would refer to apes.
The Roman empire extended into North Africa and they would absolutely have been aware of the wildlife. Hannibal actually launched an attack on the Romans that involved bringing war elephants across the Alps [0]. Subsequent readers of Roman authors would have known about the animals the Romans knew about, e.g. [1], which in turn made their way into medieval bestiaries (along with unicorns and a few others).
Definitely. According to the OED, "ape" included monkeys before the word "monkey" was introduced in the 16th century, and even after that any primate without a tail was an "ape", including the "Barbary ape", as it is still often called.
There are Carthaginian records of an expedition to Subsaharan Africa where they encountered fury human like creatures which they called the “Gorillai”.
The name was reused in the 1800s, of course we don’t know it was actual gorillas that they encountered might have been other great apes.
Also there is no evidence this was a regular occurrence. Getting over the Sahara is extremely hard and ancient ships weren’t really fit for this type of journey due to the prevailing winds (some scientists today still doubt that Hanno the Navigator could have sailed further than West Sahara despite the written evidence..).
Anyway.. it’s extremely unlikely they were in direct contact and good luck getting any great apes across the desert. Also even if they did Carthaginian culture (and pretty much all written records) was pretty exterminated by the Romans.
"Ape", from Old English apa, is a word of uncertain origin. The term has a history of rather imprecise usage—and of comedic or punning usage in the vernacular. Its earliest meaning was generally of any non-human anthropoid primate, as is still the case for its cognates in other Germanic languages.
You don't need to look back to Proto-Indo-European for a word like this. Like many other words in Slavic, this Czech word is more likely a borrowing from Germanic prior to the merger of short *a and *o to /o/ in Common Slavonic. Indeed, I just checked and it is listed on p. 200 of Pronk-Tiethoff’s The Germanic Loanwords in Proto-Slavic, the modern standard reference for these matters.
Medieval europeans were in direct contact with Barbary macaques. On top of African animals that were exchanged through Mediterranean sea since the Romans, Iberian populations, Christians, Muslim and Jewish had direct contact with macaques introduced by Maures.
I guess that depends on the standards. I can talk with about half my mouth full, but doing so would be considered impolite by today's standards. At about a quarter mouth full I can push it into my cheeks to talk mostly unimpeded.
Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s? If doctors weren’t washing theirs at the time, I have a hard time believing peasants would be doing so in the 1200s.
>Isn’t it widely recorded that handwashing only came to be a norm mid-1800s?
You're mixing up two completely different modes of washing. The one related to medicine in XIX is about washing hands in lime solution. Pop science magazines always miss this part to make it feel more sensational I guess.
Washing visibly dirty hands (e.g. with soil, grease, or blood), often using sand as an abrasive cleaner, and ashes to dissolve fat, or (depending on one's wealth) a real soap was a norm for a very long time before.
[Edit: added the last para]
Actually exactly what was used for washing the hands and the body in the Ancient World is a bit of a mystery, I have never seen an adequate discussion of this.
In the Ancient World, at least from almost 4000 years ago, i.e. when the Epic of Gilgamesh was written, until less than 2000 years ago, by the time of Pliny the Elder, the main use of the vegetable oils, including of oils like sesame oil or olive oil, was not as food, but for body massage, preferably mixed with perfumes.
Starting with the Epic of Gilgamesh, but also in many later literary works, until in the early Roman Empire, the greatest pleasures for civilized people were described as eating bread, drinking beer or wine and being anointed with vegetable oil.
While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not have soap.
The most likely method for removing the oil from the skin is that they have used lye made from plant ashes (i.e. potassium carbonate) or from mineral natron (sodium carbonate).
However, at least for a modern sensitive skin such harsh washing methods seem rather unpleasant, which seems inconsistent with the pleasure associated by the ancients with anointing.
> While it must have been pleasant to be smeared with oil, all good things come to an end. Greasy hands or greasy clothes are undesirable, so they must have had some means to wash the abundant oil from their bodies, at a time when they did not have soap.
That was certainly necessary for an athlete where a layer of dirt would stick on the oil, but just rubbing your body with any piece of metal or of wood is not enough to make it non-greasy.
Besides having no soap, there was no paper and any tissue was very expensive as it required a lot of work, so they would not use disposable tissues.
Only lye, which is made from water and plant ashes, would have been easily available, but that is much more unpleasant and damaging for the skin than soap.
We already produce natural oils for our skin (sebum), and those oils accumulate skin cells, dirt and dust, sweat, etc. It was common for Romans to use bathhouses, where they would coat themselves with olive oil, sometimes with an abrasive like pumice or fine sand, then use a strigil to remove the oil, and everything that had accumulated on the skin, before soaking/rinsing in the bath. This is enough to get you "not greasy" and they likely had a different concept of what "clean skin" should feel like, given that before soap, your bodies natural oils would be fairly ever-present.
I would guess there is varying levels of dirtiness. I think it is reasonable to expect people to clean their hands if they have things like soil or sooth on them. As those are slightly annoying to eat.
On other hand if your hands are relatively clean, I would not expect particular attention put in on cleaning them again.
This is a common confusion with the ancients' lack of germ theory. It doesn't mean they weren't aware of the association between filth, excrement, and the concept of contamination or unhealthy influence. Miasma theory goes back to at least Hippocrates, and it was thought that bad smells could cause illness. That decay begets decay is obvious. They were just very fuzzy on the mechanism.
Actually Varro, more than 2000 years ago, describes a theory of infectious diseases that are caused by microbes that are invisible because they are too small ("bestiolae") and which is formulated very similarly to how we describe such diseases today.
Perhaps Varro has taken his theory from some lost work of a Greek philosopher, though it is not impossible that he has formulated the theory himself, because his work includes a few other original passages that look very modern, e.g. when he explains how any theory should be improved by new experimental results.
In any case, this is another example of the fact that in the Ancient World for many things there were multiple competing theories, one of which was actually the modern correct theory. However the correct theory typically remained only a minority view, because they could not prove experimentally which is the right theory, so they only debated which is the more plausible of them and the more convincing orator was who won, even when he supported the theory which is now known to be wrong.
Besides, you don't need to specifically know that filth causes disease to find it offensive, and to be innately repulsed by the idea that your food has been near it. Hygenic behavior is, to some degree, instinctive.
Jewish people have a long history of laws involving hand washing. I’d be surprised if most cultures at the time didn’t have rituals or laws around hand washing!
It isn't unheard of. Jesus refused to wash his hands before eating in Mark 7:1-6, and some people were not happy about that:
The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered to Him after they came from Jerusalem, and saw that some of His disciples were eating their bread with unholy hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the other Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thereby holding firmly to the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they completely cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received as traditions to firmly hold, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and copper pots.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
note: I don't believe in any religion, but grew up christian
Jesus' callout here was on their callout; the story of Jesus in the Bible if you subscribe to Jesus was that he was the real deal and sent to close the previous covenant between god and humans, and preach the new word of god.
in the context of the book of mark, Jesus had been busy for awhile pointing out the fallacies of the current religious authoritarians and debating classic scripture with them quite successfully. the intent of the story would more accurately be that the Pharisees were the ones doing the random ad hom callout after getting bested by Jesus during debate, and he responded with a prophesy from Isaiah that is relevant.
I mean I get your point, but you need to understand that the entirety of the Bible read through a modern lens is really just a holy version of social media drama, but with a literal deity involved. the reason Jesus' response is supposed to be so big here is because his entire point up to, during, and after this is that the old laws are not relevant because humans cannot ever atone for their sins or stop sinning, so Jesus is there to solve that, and set some new rules.
and keep in mind, this is just how _I_ was taught growing up in my sect; other christian sects don't take the same interpretation of this...in other words, don't focus too much on the specifics, it's very much so open to interpretation and the Bible has so many conflicting authors and ideologies that it self-supports so many interpretations
I'm sure there will be people who instead of just sharing their interpretation will try to prove that mine is wrong :) and I'm pretty sure we could argue for days if we wanted to, and the Bible and the history of theological study would probably produce troves of thoughts and evidence to support all the interpretations and more, and we might even start a new sect accidentally while arguing :)
That was not necessarily the case in the most literal way at the time the bible was written (or rather it was a bit more complex that that). Orthodox Catholicism especially became increasingly more polytheistic over the years as it presumably tried to maximize its appeal to the masses e.g. worshipping saints and holy relics (I’m sorry… “venerating”.. lol). The exact nature of Christ remained a massive controversy for hundreds of years.
> And [x] asked [jesus], “Why do Your disciples not walk in accordance with the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unholy hands?” But [jesus] said to [x], “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites
[x] = Pharisees and the scribes = "hypocrites", right?
You are missing the cultural significance of the washing of hands. It was not meant to be about sanitation (or, any culture could have that).
1. The handwashing rule was invented by the Pharisees, and was not a part of Jewish law.
2. It was also not a tradition for sanitation, but was created to serve a ritualistic role to show they were ritually purified.
3. Because it was just a made up rule God did not give, and it was meant for the ritualistic appearance of purity, it is obviously hypocritical if the priest has no concern about their internal state (sin and whatnot).
4. In which case, it would be much less hypocritical if they either said it was for sanitation; or that it was a symbol while still admitting their unworthiness before God.
5. This is why Jesus elsewhere calls them “whitewashed graves.”
Thank you for the correction, i.e. it wasn't a humorous tale of someone getting defensive after getting called out for not washing their hands in a modern sense.
I'll note that you're agreeing with me in this subthread that Jesus wasn't calling his disciples hypocrites, but the Pharisees.
> In which case, it would be much less hypocritical if they either said it was for sanitation;
Some might and do argue that various religious taboos not that rarely served very practical purposes (at least at the time they were established). Also I wouldn’t be that eager to claim that ancient people could’ve that easily made the distinction between religious/ritual and physical purity/cleanliness like we do.
One important aspect of Christianity compared to some other religious which did survive for thousands of years to some degree was the prioritization of the spiritual world over the physical. Personal grooming, focus on one’s look or hygiene was viewed as somewhat sinful.
I don't see a meaningful distinction between "preventing disease" and "preventing spread of disease" in this context given we're talking about pathogens.
I translated it to Greek and then searched.
Not a great source, but a source. https://www.lexilogia.gr/threads/t%CE%BF-%CF%88%CE%AC%CF%81%...
"The saying goes «το ψάρι, το κοτόπουλο και η γυναίκα θέλουν χέρι», i.e. "you should use your hand for fish, chicken and women". It is usually used as a joke, in a familiar environment, in order to urge someone, usually a man, who is reluctant to use their hands to eat fish or chicken, and stick to using their knife and fork, because they are embarrassed to eat with their hands.
An attempt at a definition: "you can't eat fish and chicken unless you grab them with your hand, and you should also use your hands on (your) woman". It is a play with the phrase "βάζω χέρι", which means to grope, to feel up. Not very politically correct, I know :)"
An older person told me that a lot of years ago when I was a child and was trying to eat a chicken thigh with fork and knife. Only understood the chicken part back then...
I think this is more of a joke that has moved through a bunch of cultures. In Chile, when I started to use silverware on chicken, I was told(with a laugh) the only things they eat with their hands there is chicken and women.
Of course that excludes all the things they eat on bread.
In the English-speaking world, "mediaeval" often ends up being a shorthand for "mediaeval English" in practice. The books references in this article are English.
The vast majority of the world's population was not in Western Europe in mediaeval times but Indian and Chinese history of this period for example is rarely taught or discussed in such a mainstream way.
The author implies that because there are presently certain social customs that it is logical to presume that these customs are inherent to the human condition.
