Martin Luther, constipation, rediscovered toilets and the Reformation

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I adore stuff like this.

Luther left a candid catalogue of his battle with constipation but despite this wealth of information, certain key details remain obscure - such as what the great reformer may have used in place of toilet paper.

"We still don't know what was used for wiping in those days," says Dr Treu. The paper of the time, he says, would have been too expensive and critically, "too stiff" for the purpose.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:09 (nineteen years ago) link

I think they mainly used goosenecks and river otters back then.

Nemo (JND), Friday, 22 October 2004 15:41 (nineteen years ago) link

Hurrah for Cecil Adams and Rabelais quotes:

You refer to chapter 13 of Gargantua, the cockeyed epic by Francois Rabelais (1483?-1553). Frank's reputation as a comic genius is proof that if you tell enough dirty jokes, write in French, and wait 400 years, posterity will proclaim you one of the leading lights of civilization. In the chapter in question, the giant Gargantua tells of his efforts to find the ultimate in sanitary comfort:

"Once I did wipe me with a gentlewoman's velvet mask, and found it to be good; for the softness of the silk was very voluptuous and pleasant to my fundament. Another time with one of their hoods, and in like manner that was comfortable; at another time with a lady's neckerchief, and after that some ear-pieces made of crimson satin; but there was such a number of golden spangles in them that they fetched away all the skin off my tail with a vengeance. This hurt I cured by wiping myself with a page's cap, garnished with a feather after the Swiss fashion. Afterwards, in dunging behind a bush, I found a March-cat, and with it daubed my breech, but her claws were so sharp that they grievously exulcerated my peritoneum. Of this I recovered the next morning thereafter, by wiping myself with my mother's gloves, of a most excellent perfume of Arabia. [He continues in this vein for several pages.] But to conclude, I say and maintain that of all arse-wisps, bum-fodders, tail-napkins, bung-hole-cleansers and wipe-breeches, there is none in this world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs: and believe me therein upon mine honour; for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down, and of the temperate heat of the goose; which is easily communicated to the bumgut and the rest of the intestines, insofar as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and demigods, in the Elysian fields, consisteth either in their Ambrosia or Nectar, but in this, that they wipe their tails with the necks of geese."

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 22 October 2004 16:16 (nineteen years ago) link

On Gandhi: "He was, truth be told, rather weird at times. His own purification regime involved inordinate attention to the bowel movements of himself and those around him, and he liked testing his powers of self-denial by sleeping naked with young women...."

andy, Friday, 22 October 2004 16:31 (nineteen years ago) link

I think he used to wipe his ass with parchment and then nail it to doors around town.

dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 22 October 2004 16:42 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm referring to TP as "tail-napkins" from now on.

Nemo (JND), Friday, 22 October 2004 18:08 (nineteen years ago) link

I think he used to wipe his ass with parchment and then nail it to doors around town.

95 Feces?

(I'm so sorry)

Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:43 (nineteen years ago) link

(No you're not.)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:45 (nineteen years ago) link

The doors of Wittenberg must have had an interesting smell.

Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:48 (nineteen years ago) link

(No I'm not)

Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 22 October 2004 19:48 (nineteen years ago) link

I was under the impression that they used sticks for that purpose.

One stick for everyone who used that partictlar toilet.

(Ick.)

Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Friday, 22 October 2004 20:27 (nineteen years ago) link

Luther's gastro-intestinal troubles aren't really surprising, especially considering the Diet of Worms.

Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 25 October 2004 16:18 (nineteen years ago) link

Spencer, I sorta envision one of those vaudeville hooks coming off from stage right and yanking you away for that.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 October 2004 16:27 (nineteen years ago) link

Well done, good man.

Nemo (JND), Monday, 25 October 2004 16:29 (nineteen years ago) link

It's as if Spencer's been waiting all his life to unleash these jokes.

That chapter of Rabelais is totally gut-bustingly hysterical, by the way. You just have to realize that by "fundament" the translater means "bottom".

Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 25 October 2004 16:31 (nineteen years ago) link

Sorry about the puns guys, thanks for the indulgences!

Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:06 (nineteen years ago) link

*distant cry of anguish*

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:09 (nineteen years ago) link

Toughen up, Ned. When you talk about the reformation, occasionally you have to take some Knox.

Nemo (JND), Monday, 25 October 2004 17:36 (nineteen years ago) link

thirteen years pass...

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/71561221/95-theses-nailed-it.jpg

happy anniversary; sorry ur backed up

mookieproof, Tuesday, 31 October 2017 14:30 (six years ago) link

Martin Luther, constipation, rediscovered toilets, reformation
JFK blown away, what else do I have to say?

IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 15:50 (six years ago) link

Fake pews

Gary Synaesthesia (darraghmac), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 15:51 (six years ago) link

he inspired many future degenerates to nail their faeces to church doors.

calzino, Tuesday, 31 October 2017 15:53 (six years ago) link

take one down, pass it around

IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 15:54 (six years ago) link

An extraordinarily modern, familiar cast to the suffering of an obsessive-compulsive is found in the case of a sixteenth-century Augustinian monk named Luder, whose writings have survived into our time. Anxious and neurasthenic, troubled with a relationship with a stern and demanding father, plagued with a variety of seemingly psychosomatic disorders, the young man and been caught one day in a frightening thunderstorm while waling alone, suffered a panic attack, and vowed to become a monk if he was allowed to survive.

True to his vow, he became a novitiate and threw himself into the rituals with a froth of repetition, self-doubt, and self-debasement. He described his dis-ease with the German word Anfechtung, which he defined as a sense of being utterly lost, a sense of anxious lack of mooring in every circumstance. He carried out each monkish ritual to perfection, urging himself to ever greater concern for detail, ever greater consciousness of God throughout the act, ever greater contrition for his own inadequacies ... and would invariably find fault and have to start over again. The first Mass that he led was an agony of anxiety, as he was filled with fears of leaving out details, of saying something blasphemous. His spare hours of silent meditation were filled with obsessive, heretical thoughts, for which he confessed at length day after day. "I often repeated my confession and zealously performed my required penance," he wrote. "But I was always doubting and said, 'You did not perform that correctly. You were not contrite enough. You left that out of your confession.' " At one point, his father confessor, no doubt exhausted with having to hear hours of confessions each day from Luder, endless reportings of evidence of failings and God's justifiable anger, finally turned to the young monk with an exasperated, shockingly modern insight -- "It is not God who is angry with you. It is you who is angry with God."

History gives us a final hint of this monk's affliction. He washed and washed, and it was all futile. "The more you cleanse yourself, the dirtier you get," he summarized plaintively. The vein of obsessive-compulsive anxiety is readily apparent in this young man, who would come to be known by the more modern version of his name, Martin Luther.

from The Trouble with Testosterone and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament by Robert Sapolsky (1997)

Sanpaku, Tuesday, 31 October 2017 18:54 (six years ago) link

Now let's psychoanalyze Calvin! (nb: the religious figure from Geneva, Switzerland, not the cartoon character with an imaginary tiger friend named Hobbes.)

A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 19:37 (six years ago) link

Nonsense, Hobbes died a few decades before Calvin, they could never have been friends.

Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 19:41 (six years ago) link

Oops, other way round, blew it!

Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 19:42 (six years ago) link

WAS GONNA SAY

Pope Urban the Legend (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 31 October 2017 19:42 (six years ago) link

three weeks pass...

spencer's posts on this thread are really something

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 23 November 2017 10:50 (six years ago) link

Archaeologists in Germany say they may have found a lavatory where Martin Luther launched the Reformation of the Christian church in the 16th Century.

"i'll be right back.. just going to 'launch the reformation' if you know what i mean"

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 23 November 2017 10:52 (six years ago) link

Quotes from Luther's Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies):

Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people ... their blindness and arrogance are as solid as an iron mountain.

Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self­glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them.

...but then eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly ­ and I myself was unaware of it ­ will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safe­conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

Sanpaku, Thursday, 23 November 2017 14:37 (six years ago) link

not sure why that's really necessary dude.

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 23 November 2017 15:09 (six years ago) link

We should all understand Luther was a pretty awful person, even for his day.

When Nazis of the 3rd Reich held a historical person as a paragon, I think we should all question his influence to the current day. We certainly shouldn't name our children after him.

Sanpaku, Thursday, 23 November 2017 15:23 (six years ago) link

right, but we don't need all of those incredibly offensive sentiments posted into our message board in order to get that do we? i wouldn't paste paragraphs of 5tormfr0nt rantings either. and luther is a fine name wtf

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 23 November 2017 15:38 (six years ago) link

'The Lord has struck me in the behind with heavy pain; my excrements are so hard that I am forced to push them out with great force so that I'm sweating. And the more I postpone it, the harder the excrements get. Yesterday I have defecated for the first time in four days. Because of that I could not sleep all night and still have no peace. Please, pray for me!' (to Melanchthon, 12.5.1521, WA BR 2, 333)

'My ass has gone bad. The Lord visits me.' (to Amsdorff, same day. WA BR 2,334)

'Today I have defecated the first time in six days, the stool was so hard, I nearly died. Now I am sitting here like a woman who has given birth: lacerated, wounded, stained with blood. Tonight I will not even have a little bit of sleep.' (to Spalatin, 9.9.1521, WA BR 2,388)

'My anus and my stomach have finally made peace with me so that I do not need medicine any more. I am as healthy in all things as I have been before, thanks be to God.' (to Spalatin, 7.10.1521, WA BR 2,395)

Courtesy of reddit's AskHistorians.

pomenitul, Thursday, 23 November 2017 15:45 (six years ago) link

Ned's third post about wiping with a goose neck is so amazing and mystifying.

AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 23 November 2017 15:46 (six years ago) link

tracer: I'm just angry there are still Lutheran churches and his name is incorporated wherever Martin Luther King Jr. is commemorated. I vented.

Sanpaku, Thursday, 23 November 2017 16:06 (six years ago) link

Sanpaku, how do you feel about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism#Recent_Lutheran_Church_responses

pomenitul, Thursday, 23 November 2017 16:22 (six years ago) link

Can't believe a medieval dude wasn't ah fuckit

fake pato is kind of racist, dude (darraghmac), Thursday, 23 November 2017 16:27 (six years ago) link

he was chronologically impaired

AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 23 November 2017 16:38 (six years ago) link

I have to imagine his OCD was the chicken that laid the chronic constipation egg (I assume his diet options were mostly bread, water, onions and cured meats? from which I’m guessing he went with the bread and water most days) and who knows, maybe his horrendous gut fauna situation led to the antisemitism.

El Tomboto, Thursday, 23 November 2017 17:09 (six years ago) link

I thought everybody had read gargantua & pantagruel in its entirety btw

El Tomboto, Thursday, 23 November 2017 17:10 (six years ago) link

Can't believe a medieval dude wasn't ah fuckit

Can't believe a medieval German dude wasn't ah fuckit

The buttermilk of Beelzebub (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 November 2017 17:12 (six years ago) link

I assume his diet options were mostly bread, water, onions and cured meats?

water was unhealthy to drink as environmental pollution was completely unregulated in those days, public water sources were often festering puddles of disease. good water was scarce so even children drank watered down mead/wine. bread was often maggoty or hard, baked into hardened cakes for preservation. there was no public sanitation so everyone lived in much filthier conditions, people often caught diseases from animals or animal feces. put this all together and you can bet lot of people had bowel issues back then.

Can't believe a medieval dude wasn't ah fuckit

Can't believe a medieval German dude wasn't ah fuckit

this was at a time when IP laws were so strict that writing your own translation of the Bible in your region's language and not the official Latin would likely lead to your work getting a public burning or maybe a visit to a torture chamber. Martin Luther had some balls to say "Fuck that i'm writing in German" and then condemn the church for selling out via Indulgences. he had some good opinions, he had some bad opinions, like anyone, he was human.

he was excommunicated and condemned as an Outlaw by the Pope Leo X in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. he probably had a shitty life after that, for this was a time when the church had a far greater reach over legal, societal, and culture infrastructure, and being excommunicated meant he couldn't do any legit work for the next 25 years of his life. it seems he became a bitter old man, dying at 62, and lashing out at both Jews and Muslims, like many bitter, old people do nowadays. imo the best way to treat hateful writing is not to duplicate and spread it around.

AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 23 November 2017 20:01 (six years ago) link

Being too soft on him imo - if he was capable of independent critical thinking about theological matters we can hold him to a certain standard in how he approaches Jews

Never changed username before (cardamon), Thursday, 23 November 2017 23:40 (six years ago) link

being too soft was definitely not a familiar sensation for ML

El Tomboto, Friday, 24 November 2017 00:03 (six years ago) link

Thanks Adam didn't realise it was *that* Martin Luther very helpful post thanks again

fake pato is kind of racist, dude (darraghmac), Friday, 24 November 2017 00:31 (six years ago) link

two years pass...

I found a guy:

https://ergofabulous.org/luther/?

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 5 August 2020 17:50 (three years ago) link

That’s amazing. Surely a Twitter bot must be in the works??

Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 5 August 2020 18:18 (three years ago) link

I hope so!

xyzzzz__, Friday, 7 August 2020 13:30 (three years ago) link


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