Don: 0:28

So technically it wasn't cannibalism. No, I I could see why. Yeah. Anthropologists call it nutritional endogamy. You gotta eat. It's different. You gotta eat. Yeah.

unknown: 0:41

Yeah.

Don: 0:42

Agreed. I'm glad we all agreed on that. Tastes like pork. Yeah. That's good. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the end canary. I'm Don. I'm Ron. Doug's here. Way in the back.

Ron: 0:57

Not allowed to sit at the table. I'm 30 feet away from everyone else. It's at the kids' table.

Doug: 1:03

But I'm close to your heart.

Don: 1:04

So feels like it's been forever since we've been here. How you guys been? Uh I've been all right. I've been killing it, crushing it, coming over a vaccine slump. You know what I mean? Whoop whoop. All my vaccine slumpers out there.

Doug: 1:21

Yeah, my boy is getting his two front teeth. I've got the slump of uh this week was two hours of sleep every single night. So shout out to the teeth. Yeah, that's right.

Don: 1:34

Lucky him, Tooth Fairy is nice. I know. Well, I've been thinking. Yeah. Um, it's been a it's been a while since uh since the the three of us were in college, and we were in colleges in different centuries. So um uh and one of the things that I was thinking about was uh you know how in college you get an assignment at the beginning of the of the uh uh the semester in your syllabus, right? Yeah and you know when it's due and it's been and you know like weeks and weeks ahead of time. When when did you usually complete your assignment? Well you gotta guilt trim me about this. It's not no guilt, man. Like I'm just just curious.

Doug: 2:13

It was always so late. Always so late. I got better about it actually towards the end of college, like definitely year three and four. I was four-year graduate, year three and four when I was in my um main classes. I would actually start planning because usually it would be like your whole grade is based on two essays, and so I would start drafting like week three or have something week four, and then go from there because it'd be like the mid and then final. So I got better about it, but yeah, usually procrastination nation.

Don: 2:43

I feel the same. I feel like I got I got there by my senior year, and I was like, whoa, this is actually nice. I could just do this and not worry about it for five days, but definitely started out um procrastinating late at night, yeah. Um, waiting day of. I remember sometimes procrastinating so much that it'd be like, Well, I'll get started soon, and then it'd be like midnight's like, well, uh, it won't be good now, so I just won't do it. And I just wouldn't do it. And I had a teacher once be like, You never submitted that paper, and I was like, Yes. And he was like, You can't do that. Bring me that paper. And I said, Okay. And I it was actually important. I needed to hear that. Because all the other teachers let me get away with it. Yeah, because there was always like three papers, and if you missed one, you could still pass the class because I was like a pretty good writer, and uh so I would just do two good essays and skip one and I'd get like a C or something. Yeah, but this guy was like, No, don't do that. And I was like, Okay, and I did, and thank you. I don't even remember his name. Thanks, guys.

Doug: 3:46

But he's out there, thanks, guy.

Don: 3:48

Yeah, he's out there saving you. Yeah, I had uh similar, so I would I remember I have a very strong memory in my freshman year of um of having like a 15-page paper due and and like keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off, and then same similar, like right, let's it's due tomorrow, so like I should probably start on it soon. Um, but uh it got so late in the evening that uh I decided that I wouldn't be able to do a good job with it. So what I promised myself was that I would I'm gonna go to sleep, get a couple hours, and then I'll wake up super early and and knock it out. And uh so I woke up at like 4 a.m. and I wrote to like three and I and I did. I finished paper and actually was not so bad. So uh so what I unfortunately learned or convinced myself of was that uh that was my writing process. I needed to just wait and wake up super early and only do my drafting when I was so tired I couldn't think that uh so that way I didn't I I couldn't even think of a reason to procrastinate because I was just so tired. So that's uh that it's not the process I still use, but it is a process I trained myself in for a little bit.

Doug: 4:52

So that is interesting because very often when working with certain students on writing, I always tell them, get me a really bad draft. I would really like that. Not because I necessarily want to encourage them to write a bad draft, but I'm trying to alleviate the pressure of just get something out there so then we can work with that. And I think that that's actually what I've been chasing the whole time. So I'm glad that I have the story to match it now. Well, there you go. Yeah, please use me as the object lesson. You know this guy down the hall?

Ron: 5:19

He uh he used to be a real sack of shit too. That's right.

Don: 5:30

Yeah. All right, you guys ready to go uh in our in our time machine back uh back to Oh yeah. Where are we going this time, Dun? We're going back to a really important all night. Do I need a cloak? Do I need can I bring my glasses? What will you probably need your glasses? Okay. But uh because, right, in the in the in honor of our one night, or our all night, sorry. Our all night uh stands. Um want us to uh very different go back to uh to bohemia in the 13th century. Okay, okay. I like that. All right, okay, man. So uh we're in uh what's what's now today the uh the Czech Republic, uh a Benedictine um monastery in uh Podolitsa, and uh there's a monk. I see him. Yeah, yeah, his hair is cropped around the head. And uh uh he's committed a transgression against the the the community. No sick. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but I know that it was pretty significant because his uh his punishment that his brothers have decided to inflict on him is immurement.

Doug: 6:44

Do both of you know what that is? Am I the only one who does know I do, but the audience probably doesn't. So don't Doug Simpleton.

Ron: 6:53

If you learn what amuramment means, you can come to the table, Doug. Guess I'll be even further away now. I know that you both know what amurement is. Thanks. Um now it's even more condescending.

Doug: 7:07

Try harder, you'll get it.

Don: 7:09

Yeah, because you uh you you definitely have read it, and some of you you might even have taught it. Doug, I think you taught it this year, actually. Um I just looked it up. You're familiar with uh a story by Edgar Allan Poe? Yes, the cask of Amont. The cask of Amontato? Yeah, yeah. Immurement is uh to be walled alive into uh into the wall. Oh, so that actually happens. So but was he trapped with nitre? Was that the uh planter? The niter. So uh so again, I don't know what his uh his crime is, but he's gonna be buried alive in the walls of the monastery. So wow. So their monastery. Their monastery. And that that's kind of cool because they're like, we want you here. There is no escape. That's right.

Doug: 7:57

You are part of the community, you'll be part of the building. Yeah, I find this very weird. Like, I'm imagining like, and there's Roger who was putting the wall. I don't know about this. Yeah.

Don: 8:10

Well, I mean, and before we continue with the story, like it do you know of any like emurements, famous emurements in the in in history? I'm not sure that I do. Honestly, the story you mentioned, I think, is the only thing that comes to mind when I think about burying people in structures. I mean, I guess like there's always a baseball stadium where it's like there's one guy, yeah. The Jimmy Hoffa thing, but also there's like one guy got buried when they built this stadium in concrete. All right, I guess you ever heard that one.

Doug: 8:42

Uh I only think of modern media, the anime attack on Titan. It's a very, very big central part. The Titans being in the walls. Sorry, spoilers, everybody, but the Titans get in the walls? Yeah, they were sealed in. Yes. Yes.

Don: 8:58

So since we're talking about literature, we might as well stay with uh do you know any literature besides Monteado buried alives? I know you do, so it's a trick question. I'd it's it's uh does this count like uh any buried alive is so you don't need to be in a in a structure, well like judicial buried alive, but yeah. Um I don't know, is that like in the crucible or something?

Doug: 9:21

No, it's not I'll just throw one out.

Don: 9:28

And the reason why it matters is because it's the justification for why it's a punishment in the first place. Okay, so is it like the Bible? So it's not, but it uh uh I feel like there's got to be some amirment in the Bible, so something old that would have informed something old. Don Quixote with a with a character named Creon.

Ron: 9:47

Creon Oedipus Rex or the other one, Antigone Antigon. So what happens to Antigone? I don't teach that one, bro.

Don: 10:03

She's buried alive, yeah. She is um and she's buried alive with water and food. Um and Creon has a line where he uh basically says that he he will be innocent and the community will be innocent of her blood. So it's uh it's a death sentence, obviously, but you bury them alive with water and food so that way it's not your fault that day can't we extend if we're if we're applying that much logic, can't we extend it just a little bit further? What will happen when they run out of the food I gave them and denied them access? That was their fault. Yeah, it means that the gods were against them, yeah. Absolutely love the limits of logic. But so that's obviously uh Greek drama, right? So that's uh fiction, probably, but uh but it does happen in real life. So the Romans then pick up that uh logic and Vestal Virgins. That was the punishment for vessel virgins that broke their virginity. Um they were uh immured alive in in the uh under Rome with a a lamp. They got a lamp too. They got a lamp, um, some food and water. That's terrible. So according to the rules, it's supposed to be enough for three days. I don't know that's the Roman rules, that's the later medieval rules. So um enough the the rules were in right in Christian books, so it's enough for uh enough time for confession and uh it sounds like it's trying to force you to arrive at a conclusion in your mind, right? Which is like, wow, this really does suck. I guess I made a mistake that I wish I could fix. Yeah. So we're going back to our guy. Okay, okay. Do you want a name? Yes, please. Or is it better without a name? Because then he's like a mystery in the history. There's a lot of mystery in the history already. I'm choking on mystery. His name is his name is Herman. Herman. All right. So Herman realizes that uh the the cell he's about to be put in will be his tomb. Yeah, and they're gonna break him in with enough bread, enough water for three days. And it the bread and water is just the procedure, like that's just what you do. It's not because they care about him or right, they're trying to, so he's uh uh it's mercy, I guess, but with a deadline, like you point out, right? So they're getting ready and he decides he's going to ask for clemency. So he begs his uh um his abbot, right? That he can do something that will bring honor to the monastery to to overcome whatever shame it, like I said, I don't know what his crime was, but it was probably pretty bad. He's going to overcome the shame that he has brought on his community by being able to do do something that that will attract attention and glory to the monastery. He's going to write a book. Ooh, I I've I've been in this place. No, wait, please don't leave. I'll write a book. It's the great American novel, right? Everybody's gonna get uh knock one out, sure. Um, so it's gonna be it's gonna be wondrous, he says. It's going to include all of the honor of God, it's going to include religious texts, it's gonna include copies of the Bible, uh history up to this point, medicine, everything all knowledge known to man, including like there's exorcism, like all the rituals, and better yet, he's going to put it in one volume and he's going to complete it in one night. I know put it up on Amazon so everyone can access it.

Doug: 13:28

Absolutely.

Don: 13:28

In one night. One night. Okay. Yeah. So he's going to put everything together in one night. So this was this goes contrary to my original thought, which was that, oh, he's like shaharazotting the situation. I'll make the biggest book and then you can kill me when it's done. Right. And I'll just filibuster. Oh, not done. I have to add an appendix. Yeah. But he just had to go in. It's still a deadline. No one is like, no one asked you to do it in one night. It's a big boast. Yeah. So but uh but that's it. So that's the that's the uh that's the offer, and uh the habit takes it. I mean, I would. Yeah. It's a smartly made offer. If you're the uh if you're the what do I got to lose? Sure. Yeah, like because when you wake up in the morning and there's no book, we're still just locking the door, right? Yeah, so no no skin off my nose.

Doug: 14:15

So and then speaking of skin, I was thinking of Rumpel's still skin in this moment, you know, like the well, just give me this much time and then I'll be able to complete this task for you. I like it. I like it. Yeah, yeah.

Don: 14:26

All right. So the the community goes to bed, and uh Herman is uh is in his cell uh and uh and they bring him ink, they bring him quill. Uh quill. He's got uh he probably needs to sharpen his quill from time to time. He's gonna be putting all that stuff in. A couple monster energy drinks would do well, Abbott.

Ron: 14:48

White monster indeed.

Don: 14:52

So uh alright, so tell me what you guys think. Is Herman gonna pull it off in one night? No, of course not. Herman's a fraud, Herman's a joke. Unless we like summaries. Where are we? We're like 1300, is that what you said? Uh 13th century, 12012. 1204, probably is the date we're so like writing takes time back then. It does what I'm thinking. So I think that's a good question. So, like, how much time does it take? Like, how because back then, right? Writing's not a well-known skill. It's something that's primarily reserved to scriptoria in monasteries. It's one of the main purposes that monasteries existed, so they could copy over books because we don't have Xerox machines and printing presses and things like that. So, about how long do you think it takes to uh copy over a page of text from uh by hand? Or copying over the Bible or whatever you might be copying over. I'm gonna say like a day, two days. To do how much? To do a page, because they're always like they have to be like ruled, right? They have to Yeah, because the the page is blank, right? So it's not coming from the factory, the blue lines on it, like and are we including it's all ornate?

Doug: 15:57

Yes, so it's gonna be a good thing. You gotta give him time to draw a snail in the margin because he's bored.

Don: 16:01

Everybody everybody has the snail, that's right.

Doug: 16:03

Yeah, yeah, because I'm thinking of like the the books that you find in the Getty that are just like gorgeous on the outside, and I'm like that maybe a month per page.

Don: 16:13

So those are called illuminated texts, right? And so yeah, they include the the drawings and the painting and all that on them, but uh but let's just go a text page. So so text page, maybe a couple like large capital letters at the beginning of paragraphs, but just uh a page of text. How many could you do in a day? Uh I'm gonna say two. Two's a good guess. Yeah, 24 hours we're talking, right? Well, a work day. That yeah, and the work day for them, remember they've they've got like 16 different kinds of prayer they gotta stop and say and and then have dinner with the community and all that. So their work day is probably closer to four or six hours.

Doug: 16:48

Sure. Yeah, yeah. I'll go prices, right? Rules and say one, given that there's nothing lower.

Don: 16:53

Yeah, they say three to four.

unknown: 16:55

Okay.

Don: 16:55

Um paleographers that that like study ancient manuscripts say you could do three to four. If it's an illuminated text, you could do like one a week. So if you're one of those pages that's full bomb color and eight, right? And Herman has promised multiple pages, a whole book in one night. I I like this guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's insane.

Doug: 17:18

Yeah.

Don: 17:19

Why um why why are we burying him alive? Uh like why that punishment or why so one of the things that makes the story interesting to me, I guess, is that. Like, if this were just uh Herman who had an idea one day and said, Hey, I want to write a book, like it doesn't the story is interesting to me because there's this we need tension. Yeah. We need we need something on the line. What could be it's not enough that he's gonna be tried or you know, some some sort of judicial rigmarole. It's gotta be death and it's gotta be a really gnarly death, right?

Doug: 17:58

Yeah, and then I'm immediately thinking Antigone again, and I'm wondering, like, is it defiance?

Don: 18:05

So Herman being defiant. Yeah, like defying his his sentence.

Doug: 18:09

Sure.

Don: 18:10

Okay. Alright, they bring him parchment, they bring him ink, they bring him his three days worth of food and water, and uh and they shut the door and they just give him time. And they go to bed. All right, so he starts writing, the confidence is pretty high when he starts writing. Yep. Yeah, but uh he looks at the blank pages and they're just the stack of blank pages compared to you know the pages that he's writing, like it's just an abyss, and he's on the precipice of the abyss, and it's about to swallow him. And he thinks like a monk, right? So who are you gonna turn to for help if you're a monk?

Doug: 18:51

A god.

Don: 18:52

Yeah, of course. But he's so slow, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are you gonna do? Anyway, so um outside the door, everybody's holding their breath, wondering, is he gonna pull this off? Pretty soon the rooster crows, right? Sign of the morning. Morning's here. Abbott goes in expecting to see either one of two things a bunch of blank paper or a dead monk. And uh they go in and there's a giant book. I mean a giant book. Like all of the knowledge kind of book. A book that is three feet tall, twenty inches wide, nine inches thick.

Doug: 19:40

Okay.

Don: 19:42

That's the biggest book you've ever held in your hand.

Doug: 19:49

I think it might be infinite jest.

Don: 19:51

It might be. I was gonna say like an old DC eyewitness, like knights book, you know. Yeah, with all the pictures. Yeah. It was the atlas, the atlas at the library that's on the stand, right? That's the and that's it's like what foot a foot and a half tall? This is twice as tall. Like three feet, three feet tall, twenty inches wide. Yeah. So the abbot looks at it and says, Well gosh, what's what's inside here? And they look, and the first part is the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament. Then we have uh an encyclopedia uh named Josephus, so it's uh Jewish antiquities and and knowledge, and then we have um the encyclopedia Isidore, which is a different later medieval encyclopedia, followed by the uh Cosmos of Prague, that's a Bohemian history book, followed by medical texts that give remedies for headaches and other kinds of herbal uh uh medicines. Um, then we have a section with the rites in it, include rites of exorcism. Uh, then we have the calendar that includes all of the Saints' days on them for several years out. Um and uh how did he do this all in one night? Wouldn't it be amazing if you could see the book? Would it make the story more realistic if you could see this tremendous artifact? Well, let me show you because I have it. Oh, snap, you just ordered it. Yeah, and just on Amazon, right? All right, here you go, Dad. Okay, wow. All right, so that's just the front cover.

Doug: 21:30

Okay, yeah.

Don: 21:31

It's like uh well, we it's not gilt, but we've got some ornate ornamentation added to it. It's got hardware on the on the edges, yeah, for sure.

Doug: 21:41

Yeah, absolutely. It's like uh worn metal on the sides with very ornate. And the question I immediately have is was this on here too? Because what the heck's going on that there's metalwork on this. Um what's interesting is there's something kind of that looks like a Nautilus star at the center a bit, um, but the center almost looks like a button that you can press. It's like a raised button that's right there. Like a little doorknob that opens the portal.

Don: 22:10

Yeah, yes, exactly.

Doug: 22:12

Because I'm assuming that it's just pages that are stacked up three feet. Oh, okay. You're gonna let me yeah, it's okay, you can touch it. I was worried.

Don: 22:19

For our listener, we're just on my iPad that has a picture of it, so he's not actually man handling a medieval manuscript.

Doug: 22:26

So now that we're into the text, we definitely have red and black color.

Don: 22:30

Is that because of it wearing or there are there are different colors inks that are used throughout the text. Um, but uh but the it's it's a text that's it's 800 years old, right?

Doug: 22:43

So I mean it's it's gone through some things. What's mind-blowing is it is unbelievably small. This makes the uh like when you get a uh the font, you mean right? Yes, yeah, the font handwriting. Yeah, that's the easiest way to communicate. It's wild how small it is with giant capital letters like kind of strewn about here. Um yeah.

Don: 23:06

So one of the things, so since you're talking about the the writing itself, uh one of the things that uh again are our paleographers have have looked at is the consistency of the hand.

Doug: 23:17

Yeah.

Don: 23:18

Yeah. And um, I don't know, like you both have taught Beowulf at one time or another. Yeah. Yeah. Um and the manuscript of Beowulf, which I know we don't actually teach from, but um, the manuscript of Beowulf, they think was written by at least two scribes because there's two different types of handwriting in them. And what the uh those who study this look at is that even a single scribe over the course of a lifetime, you can tell like if this is from an earlier period of their work or a later period of their work. We don't know the names of many of the scribes, but we just we can we can tell by their work, like that they worked on this text and they might work on a later text, and we can tell that they their eyesight is bad or their hands is not as steady as it used to be. In this book, it's steady the whole way through. There's no changes from page one to the last page.

Doug: 24:01

And I I don't know, I'm on page 13 of 629. Looks like here. We're already into a section that is illuminated, by the way. So we do have some artwork in here.

Don: 24:10

So yeah, it's not just not just script. Yeah, there are illuminations that uh that uh are uh filtered throughout. So tell me how did Herman do this in one night? This isn't the work of the Lord.

Doug: 24:24

What? This is the work of Fow Thanks. Yeah. He had to ask somebody else. What what do you mean, Doug? You had to sell your soul. Huh.

Don: 24:37

There's definitely there's definitely a devil in Georgia. So I mean, this is unbelievable. Yeah. If you scroll up a little bit, right? I mean, you said you're only on page 13. Like give it a space I'm in 45, give it a good spin. Really fly. Yeah, go a couple hundred pages in and uh and look, and again, just notice how consistent that script is. Nothing's changing, right? He has to have done this all in one night.

Doug: 24:59

Unless we're uh what is it? Like taking pages, smashing them on the other side, just copying it over. Yeah, but I it doesn't look like it.

Don: 25:12

It does uh repeat all work and no play makes Hermann Adult over L. So that's a little creepy. I think the con so uh when you were listening all the content, it sounds like these were previously written works, right? That he has compiled into one of this, right?

Doug: 25:29

Yeah, it's getting more illuminated as I go on, by the way. Yeah, he's stunting on us right now.

Don: 25:35

Yes. There's one illumination I would like you to take a look at, Doug.

Doug: 25:40

Okay, do you know the page number? I do. Do you want to guess what page it is? Well, it can't be since we're going on the devil theme, it can't be 666.

Don: 25:48

You're right, because there's only 620 pages. Yeah. Um, it's uh it's a bookmark for you. It's page 577 that I need you to uh to get to. If you go to the uh the top left, there's an icon that looks like a like a sidebar. Table of contents. There you go. And then go over one and it's uh 577 is the very oh unusual image.

Doug: 26:13

Oh there he is. Oh, I've seen this guy. Yeah. So what do you got? It's looking like a demon. It's looking like a demon. Oh, and then on the other side, sorry, I went back up to 576. We have a city, it seems.

Don: 26:32

That's the city of Jerusalem. Okay. Okay. So the page of four has got uh uh Jerusalem, and then on page 577, we have uh nearly two foot tall uh image of a of a demon. Yeah, his face is blue, he's got like talon, fingers, and hands, two snakes coming out of his mouth, it seems. Yeah, speedy little eyes. He kind of looks cute, he's kind of like a goblin-y looking dude. He's got like a little diaper thing in the ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Which probably means it's Herman, right? So all right. So this the story goes: this is the manuscript full and complete that Herman produces the abbot finds this, and and and we have it today. This is Herman. Herman's text. You can go see this today. It is in Stockholm Museum in Sweden. It's the book that really exists. You can go see it. It's it's got a uh a pretty solid um uh chain of custody that goes all the way back to the 13th century. Um and uh so it was in this uh particular abbey. So when when you got a deadline, right, and uh and God's too slow, you can turn to Yeah, I thought I was right, right? I'm shocked. So uh so this is this is known as the devil's bible. Wow. Okay, um, because the story is that uh that Herman uh realized that he could not complete this in one night, and uh and in his in his panic, he turned to uh the devil to ask for some help, and uh and and here he comes. And this is years before Faust. So Okay, so Faust is so Faust is a real person, right? And but but this is years before him. Uh deals with the devil go back further than Faust, right? But Faust is the uh the one that we we apply the name to. But uh look at are you still on page 577?

Doug: 28:32

I can go right back there. No, I'm I'm really captivated now. I've been going all over the place. All right, 77.

Don: 28:41

We're there. So do you notice the anything unusual about the paper around the image compared to the uh the paper that you were looking at earlier?

Doug: 28:50

Yeah, it's definitely darker. It looks burned.

Don: 28:55

Oh, why would that page be darker and burned? Because the devil's a fire guy. See, and when you're putting the picture of the author in, right, and he's he's on fire, right? Like it's getting too uh so isn't this spooky? It's quite spooky. I like it a lot. That's fun. Wow. And only the pages near is it seem kind of scorched, right? That's right. Yeah. Or burning Jerusalem.

Doug: 29:23

Is that the is that the idea? Scary.

Don: 29:28

So devil works in mysterious ways. Yeah. This is uh very cool. I think I okay, I think Herman was like, I'm gonna bring reputation and fame to the to the monastery, right? So uh why don't you and I why why why don't we just uh say the devil made a book here? But that the abbot was like, What? He's like, hear me out, hear me out. Like um it would be cooler, it would be cooler if God did that, but like we would be blaspheming or something, lying about divine influence. Right, but you can't get in trouble for lying about uh in infernal influence. So do you first of all I guess do we believe this was written by the devil? No. I don't. Why not? Because the devil is also lazy. The devil's also sloth. He's not gonna write a 700-page book of the book. He was a trendsetter. Yeah.

Doug: 30:35

Yeah. Um I'm open to it, I'll tell you that right now.

Don: 30:40

Well, especially when you have the proof in your hands, right?

Doug: 30:42

It's very it's some wild stuff. Yeah.

Don: 30:48

What uh so Ron, if the story isn't true, yeah. What does why do we have the story of the devil in the first place? If it's if it's like you say, if it's just human like if it's human uh uh effort, it's still impressive. Of course it's incredibly impressive, but I I think the it uh it's drawing attention, right? Like we we had a guy, he made his really cool book, we let him spend his whole life making whatever he wanted or something, right? And he made this really crazy book, and he was also a bit of a bit of a weirdo, right? And he like drew a devil somewhere in it, and knowingly or unknowingly, like that would draw because there's thousands, right, of these uh books out there, books written by the devil, yeah, thousands of books that are produced at this time, and I'm thinking we need like the the the scriptorium or the monastery, wherever this was. They're like, We need to we need to put our stamp on something. We because they were also receiving patrons, right? Like a patron would come and they would patronize the the the abbey in order to create illuminated text that like nobles would take and they would be their personal copies and stuff, right? So I feel like this is an elaborate advertisement scheme. You know, check out what we did. We we we we've got the literal devil making our books behind the scenes for us, you know. Uh and I can understand how that might be bad advertising, but you know what they say about attention. Like any attention is good attention, and so that's where I'm landing right now. If so, you you think that it's the work of a monk, but over the period of a little bit longer than whatnot. I think he probably spent more than a night on it. I'm gonna say at least two weekends. Yeah. A three-day weekend and some change. So the paleographers tell us it's a work of about 30 years. Okay. 30 years. But over the course of 30 years, his eyesight should have changed. The uh chemical makeup of the inks should have changed. Um, the uh the script should have changed, even though it's still Herman. Right. So there's uh there's still some unusual. Does Herman sign his name somewhere in this text? Where do we get Herman's name? There is uh there's a page where it does say Herman, and it's his name is Herman Inclusus. Oh, sick. Which means Herman the Enclosed. The innerment.

Doug: 33:21

I keep waiting for the twist in the story in which it's like, congratulations, you did complete this, but it was the devil's work. We're not just gonna keep you in here, we're gonna burn you in here.

Don: 33:33

There are eight pages missing that were ripped out or torn out. Are they in significant places? They're right before the portrait of the devil.

Doug: 33:41

Okay. Sick. Yeah. Yeah. And that section of text is interesting because I don't know if it's aged in a certain way or not, but it's just all it looks like blocks.

Don: 33:52

Yeah, Ron, let's go back to that. Because your your theory that this is taking 30 years, why is it burned if it's the devil? Like the the devil page I the devil page has it's singed because the devil was drawing on it. We've all made the coffee-stained map of the Oregon Trail for our fourth grade project. Back on the Oregon Trail. It's it's uh, you know, you're you're um there's some I don't think the original creator of this text was like too unclever to add a sort of um metatextual element to this book, right? And so uh he could have like, you know, literally burned it on purpose, or like I'm assuming he's also working by candlelight, and there was one unfortunate evening, right, where the candle sconce got a little closer than it ought to, or the cat, you know, leapt onto the table. Well, there are you're you you do have some you bring up some good points. There's there's some history in the uh the book. So uh created in the 13th century, we think somewhere between 1204 and 1230, right? So early 13th century. Um, and it hangs out in uh in the monastery in Potolitza for uh for quite some time. Um eventually books become kind of like a currency. We got it's a kind of a war-ravaged area during the the Middle Ages. Um, so in the early 14th century, um the monastery either sold the book or pawned the book to the wealthier monastery uh near Prague. Um, and uh from there it entered the uh library of a guy named Rudolf II, not until the 16th century. He was a Holy Roman Emperor, and uh he was kind of a connoisseur of the weird. Um he had like his in in the uh in Prague Castle, he's got a cabinet, the cabinet of wonders, um, where he had like alchemical uh manuscripts, astrological charts, uh mechanical uh uh automatons, uh exotic animal, like anything he thought was weird, he wanted in his uh in his library. And so he heard about those devil's Bibles, so he acquired it and uh puts it in his library. And uh it stays there until the Thirty Years' War comes in the 17th century. Um Swedish forces sack Prague and uh they loot the uh the library of the weird and uh uh they take they take the codex with them. Um how big? So I told you how big it is. How heavy do you think that is? Uh 60, 70 pounds. Close.

Doug: 36:26

Dug? Yeah, three feet, you said three feet. Price is right again. 59 pounds, Don.

Don: 36:36

Uh 75 kilograms, 150, 160 pounds. Yeah, not something you want to carry around in your backpack. No, no, yeah. Um, made from vellum. They uh they think it's the hides of like 160 donkeys um go into making this book. So um, so it it makes its way to uh to Stockholm, and uh the Kroner Castle in Stockholm catches fire in 1697, and uh the palace is burning for three days, and librarians are literally going into the library to toss books out the window. This book uh flies out the third story window, 165 pounds. Apocryphal story says it landed on some poor schmuck in the street and killed him. Of course, you gotta throw that in this. But uh, but it survives the fall, so it doesn't uh get significant damage from it. Um a little bit of singe on on the edge. But uh, but I don't that's not why the devil portrait is uh is that it wouldn't explain it, right? Because like because it would be closed, all the rest of it would be burned too, right? Yeah. So uh so that uh they they rescued that book, it it's brought into the uh the royal library in Sweden, and that's where it still belongs, or still lives, I guess. I don't know if it belongs there. Um, and uh so in uh in 2007, uh Sweden loaned it to Prague and um uh some um I don't know hundred and 150,000 people lined up to look at this book in Prague. It was like it's coming home, it's like it's our devil. Um but uh but if you're gonna have a book like this that has uh a portrait of the devil and that's what makes it famous, what page is it gonna be open to? The devil page. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh so scientists today are telling us that uh the reason that that devil page is uh is is oxidized like that is because it's just a page that's been open since the 12th century. So um, so yeah, but uh but I guess so the reality, right? Like what's the likely story is it's probably one guy who has just amazing handwriting and uh it's 30 years work, and somewhere in the Middle Ages, this story came out because his name is and it's written in the book, Herman Inclusus. So why would he be called that if he wasn't didn't have this this punishment that was hanging over his head, right? Story. Yeah. Is it like there to kind of uh I feel like with artists we need to sort of explain what motivated them to go through the arduous, you know, process of being a genius and producing something so incredible, right? And is that maybe this sort of medieval way of doing so, right? Like he's clearly such an amazing copier of script that scribe we got to have an epithet for it, yeah. That uh we so we're gonna call him inclusus. Yeah, or like what would motivate a guy to do this? Oh, it must have been his life was on the line, and he what's with the devil? Well, he clearly he sought the aid of the devil to help him because why? Because, well, I guess he's he's gonna get married with three days of food. Like he'd probably work backwards, right, to create a fun tale about why someone would create this cool thing. Are there other copies of like is this the context of this book minus the devil illustration, or do we have other versions of these where these like common books to compile into this? So there are there are other copies of the contents of the book, yes, with the exception, but not all piled together. Okay, one of this is the only one that has all of this set together, yeah. So um, but uh the the legend of of Herman Inclusus and the story I I led you guys with uh of him being buried alive, that comes to us from the 17th century. It's the first time it was recorded, but it's older than that. So when it was recorded written down, it it had existed for centuries already. Um but um the there were um there's no known punishment of uh of any clergy being actually walled alive anywhere, but there's stories of it all over the place. Um, and uh and that's why I said there's like rules for it, like the the rules of the three days and all that stuff. Like, so there's uh there's this um sense that we want to to uh to have this punishment available in history, I guess, but uh we don't have any archaeological evidence that it ever actually was used on anyone. Um but I guess why is that? Like, why is that the punishment? So if Herman did something terrible, like I don't what's the worst thing he could have done? Like killed another monk or something like why don't we just kill him or execute him like they would with anybody else? Like, what makes Herman special? That he was so uh prodigious that there must be like a jealousy element, right? Like, like you are the best of us, Herman. How could you go swing so low? Right. Um there's a tradition with clergy as well that the punishments are supposed to be bloodless. Have you heard this? So and it it actually harkens back to what we talked about earlier with the Vestal Virgil, and uh so uh Vestal Virg in Rome, right, are supposed to be virginal and and uh avoid all sexual contact and things like that. And if they ever broke that or they they had affairs with men, then they had given up their um their sanctity and their purity. So that's why they were they were buried alive, and um but because they were supposed to be holy, then we couldn't the Rome thought they couldn't spill their blood, right? Because that would then be a transgression against the sanctity of of the vestal. So um by burying them alive, it's technically a bloodless um punishment. And that tradition from the Romans um bleeds into Christianity, and so there is a tradition in in history that clergy are supposed to be punished in ways that are bloodless. So when clergy were accused, it's one of the uh it's one of the primary things that was the argument between Henry II and Beckett was uh that if clergy is accused of a crime, that is a civil crime. If the church is the one punishing them, then the punishments tend to be lighter because they're bloodless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're still pretty cruel. Yeah. I mean, being I'd rather you just cut off my head than like buried me. Yeah, let's get this done. Yeah, I don't want to starve. Yeah, yeah. Your life takes a long time. Yeah, yeah. You probably die of thirst. I think dehydration, yeah. Yeah, but um, but they would wind up with things like branding or um some of that's bloodless. So there or um blinding actually was considered bloodless. Um because it is not bloodless. They would do it with a with a poker. So since they're doing it with a hot poker, it cauterizes, so they're no blood. That's smart action. Yeah, I don't I support that they also would say that would castrate that way too, but uh as punishment. But um, so this idea of the the bloodless um punishment, but then it gets mixed in, and the reason I think that it um it sort of survives the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as like this uh mythical, I don't know, fantastical punishment is because people did choose to bury themselves alive. Um have you guys heard of Anchorite before? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so do you do you know they were like uh uh I I don't know what the origin like I don't they didn't transgress or something, but it was supposed to be like uh in order to uh fulfill a promise to God or something, right? They would recluse themselves from society entirely. Yeah, and I think a lot of our stories, like we might even call them hermits or things like that, too, but but um but a true anchor, right? Would be sealed into a cell that's attached, usually attached to a church called an anchor hold. And uh it's it's a room that has only three openings. It had a little slit so they could look at church, right? They could watch mass happen, um, and they could receive communion through that slit. There was another slit um that faced the street where they could uh talk to people and provide like spiritual guidance and uh and then and that also would be where they receive food and they would put their waste and somebody would come collect it. Um and uh they the right to in uh install an anchorite uh would be like a funeral. So they actually the the it was approved by the bishop and uh the ceremony would would would be like that person was dying to the world, and the community then had to support them um because they were locked in and they were praying for the community. So it exists as a thing, but then like what happens when there's a famine, or like the person who's supposed to bring you water dies, or right. So there um there are stories of anchorites who then starve to death um because nobody brings them food, but uh it still was a choice that they made. Um, and uh so so there is like this like crossover of real life bearing alive, kind of with this like legendary bearing alive, and then we have like 30 years worth of work, but then isn't it more interesting story if it's one night story, right? So um, so one of the things I liked about this is is similar to our our King Arthur story, like like King Arthur came from somewhere, like he was probably a real guy. There's like these little trail trails of evidence. Like we have this book, right? This book exists. You can go see it at the Stockholm, uh, the library in Stockholm and and see it and see, and it's open, always open to this page, right? Because it's the it's the page everybody wants to see. And uh, and yet we have this story of like this, I don't know, miraculous, isn't this demonic, right? Yeah origin story um that uh that threads all the way back, which again, like where these legends come from, like they don't just come from nowhere, they come from like a kernel that uh that gets uh overwrought, right? What's the why why? Right. I think the the interesting part there is why the need to embellish, right? Um uh is it is it informed by some sort of misunderstanding? Is it just like good old fashioned entertainment? It's way cooler if this is the reason, right? Uh is it you know someone pulling someone's leg and it gets taken a bit too far? See, I don't know. I wonder if I because there has to be something to it, right? The only reason that that we as a as a species repeat our tropes over and over again is because we continue to get something from them, right? We still so we we always have told stories of like heroes conquering monsters, and it's because there's always a belief that that like we can overcome the the obstacle of the monster in our life, right? And if we if we don't have somebody to inspire us and look up to us or look up to, then we don't have a a motivation to to pursue that effort in our own life. But it's this story is weird to me because it's it it's like a positive outcome demonic encounter, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Like this is this is a Bible, it's a yeah, it is an encyclopedia of everything that was known in the world. I mean that's an exaggeration, but like a lot that was known in the world at the time. But if it's coming from a demonic source, like how is that like that's not something that we look up to? And it's like, hey, look, it's okay, you can make a deal with the devil. Um, it'll turn out fine. See Herman did it. So yeah. Wow. So unless it's a a commentary, right? Isn't you know I feel like uh the devil is linked to knowledge, right? To knowledge of good and evil, uh the the forbidden fruit, all that such and such. So maybe there's like a you know, Herman or whoever maybe Herman, do we think Herman actually drew the the illustrations? They do, yeah. They think that all the illumination and all the script is one guy. So maybe Herman, you know, towards the end of his life is kind of like, I've I've written, I've spent you know, 30 years working on this, and uh like will it actually come to any good? There's no new knowledge in here, it's all it's all old knowledge, the knowledge will be replaced with newer knowledge. Maybe there's a commentary, him feeling satirical towards his own, right? Knowledge is of the devil. Uh a warning to the reader don't take everything in here too seriously, because at the end of the day, right, knowledge is demonic, faith is angelic, whatever. How's that? How's that for my paper? Thanks, thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Yeah, um but the thing that I struggle with though is because it's uh which story do you like better? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, the the better story is the one that's the cooler story. It's it's wrong. Yep, right. And so, but I mean that I guess is my question. We're talking about legend, like what is true? Is the legend true? Like, is it because the legend carries a truth to it, right? Which is like there's a I don't know. Because it's it's a positive outcome Faustian bargain, and those are so infrequent unless you somehow trick the devil, and there's no trick the devil here. Yeah, like that's a component that's missing. Well, maybe that trick of the devil is he uh you know it he got the devil to write the the word of God into a book and then made it more famous and brought it to more eyes or something, you know. Yeah. So now all the Swedes are Christian.

Doug: 49:59

Yeah, except for the page that's always open, it's looking at a demon. So I think we don't read the Bible part, we just picture.

Don: 50:10

No, it is a riddle, it's a fun riddle, right? Um, I think it actually goes back to what you said earlier, which is like, which story do you like more? And it's like one story grabs people's attention, is a fun, is a barn burner, is gonna get told. The other story is gonna get forgotten, right? So maybe it's just like a literal Darwinian-ness of the appeal of the story here, right? And and the the popularity of the book, too, like the that everybody wanted a copy of, or not everybody, but like it was it was well, I mean, what like it was taken as booty. Yeah, you know, it was stolen as a as booty of war, and and it was well known that the book existed, and that it was something that they sought. They didn't like just accidentally ransack Rudolph II's uh you know, cabinet of curiosities and say, Oh, hey, look, here's our book. Like they were they were looking for it, it was one of the things that they intended to take as uh as part of their spoils of war. But um so that's interesting to me too, because in the Middle Ages, like this it was this rare object that that it only a few people could have access to. Today you can go see the book, and like anybody can go to that library and and and see it. And even on top of that, like where I got this version of it that you guys are looking at, like this is a PDF I downloaded from the library, like it's literally available to everyone in the world simultaneously, so it it's grown from Herman's cell in 1204 to something that we can all experience all the time, and it all grew from this story that probably has a truth to it. Like the guy who wrote it probably was Herman, he probably was a monk, he probably was enclosed, and I don't know if that means he was an anchorite or if he was just you know the weirdo that didn't ever leave his room because he was busy drawing devils. Yeah. Um but uh but the fact that there's a that I know it's a better story and I like the devil story better, but knowing that there's like a a layer underneath it that's based in fact makes it uh and it's fact that's inaccessible, right? Just like King Arthur. Um that makes it interesting to me. Totally.

Doug: 52:17

Yeah, I adore that.

Don: 52:19

Yeah. It's uh it's a positive reinforcer for lying, I think. It's good to lie if it makes things more famous. Sounds like somebody's been in that book for too long. It's still what we do today, though, right? I mean, we still spin legends today about things that that are not true that we know are not true, but we prefer to believe. So why did Abraham Lincoln never tell a lie? Washington shot down a cherry tree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares? But he did, I think. I don't know. I was told that. Yeah.

unknown: 52:54

Yeah.

Don: 52:55

Do we have a modern day analogy? Like, no nobody's making deals with the devil today, right? Like, that's not a story that we tell anymore. Like, what do we do instead? We must have replaced it with something.

Doug: 53:06

I think when it's brought up in this context, it's always somebody who's gotten tremendous success or wealth instead of like this is very classic in its origin and has kind of like a Christian overtone, versus now it's looked at as like uh vice and excess, exclusively almost. You know, like where it's like the devil is kind of removed from it, but it's just like kind of ubiquitous evil.

Don: 53:27

Well, the sin exists, or right, and we and and we recognize that as a wrong, even though it's not a not usually prosecuted as a religious transgression.

Doug: 53:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Don: 53:37

Yeah. It's the people that it's the Bitcoin billionaires that accidentally bought yeah, or the people who get their like, you know, 25 minutes of fame blowing up on a TikTok reel or whatever. It's the 16-year-olds drying the Lamborghinis at 500 miles an hour down the highway and crying because they got hurt or because they got crashed. So yeah. Well, thanks guys. Thanks for uh reading the devil's Bible with me today. Thank you, Don, for uh pushing the needle in our sort of infernal fascination, even further. I I didn't think it could go that much further, but it it does.

unknown: 54:15

Thank you.

Don: 54:15

I'll pray for you, Ron. All right. And uh and you know, if you guys ever get walled in somewhere, I would give you more than three days' worth of bread. Can I get five?

Ron: 54:26

And some booze. I'll take none. Let's just go at that point. It's just prolonging the inevitable. All right, we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody. Take care.