Public Waxings and the Court of Louis XIV

Throughout history there have been no lack of monarchies that have gone to great lengths to project their power both to their own subjects and their rivals. Whether amassing huge fortunes, building extravagant palaces, or commissioning great works of art, image has been a very important element in defining a king or queen and their reign. Of all the royal families over the centuries, the House of Bourbon gained particular infamy for this practice. French territory expanded greatly under their rule, some of the greatest figures in the Baroque art world could name these kings as patrons, and they are responsible for arguably the most opulent royal residence in history with Versailles. As the Bourbon's influence reached dizzying heights, these monarchs took up a particularly eccentric practice: full body waxing.

This came about for two very different reasons. Since antiquity, sculpture had depicted men and women in an idealized, beautiful state. Ancient Greek statues featured gods and goddesses with perfect musculature and sleek, smooth skin. It was very difficult to find fault with their form.  Almost two millenniums later, the titans of Renaissance art returned to this practice. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and countless others emulated this and built upon it, creating sculpture and paintings that portrayed humans in a highly idyllic form. It was something that the House of Bourbon envied and wanted to replicate in the real world.

However, they chose to take things one step further, more so out of necessity than anything else, for it was an age when bothersome bugs could make themselves at home on a person and be very difficult to get rid of. So bad was it that many took to shaving their heads and dawning powdered wigs as a means of staving them off. This gave the French kings an idea. Why not remove all of the hair from their bodies while at the same time trying to look like the great statues of the past? This way they could become the pinnacle of beauty while at the same time dealing with those pesky lice.

Things began slowly with the king and higher ranking nobility partaking in the practice, setting the trend that many more in high society quickly took up. Eventually grand soirees were held at midnight on the last day of the month in Versailles, culminating in the participants ceremoniously waxing one another. It was a great honor to be the one selected to wax the king. Two weeks before the event, when all of the invitations were sent out, one would come in a golden envelope. The recipient was deemed L'Honourable Homme de la Cire and would be tasked with the duty of de-hairing the king for that month.

It was actually a very stressful position to have bestowed upon one's self, maintaining the fragile balance of delicacy and vigor that the king required, nay demanded, of his waxer. If one was particularly adept at this role, they would receive great favor from the monarch. Most performed admirably, however there was one instance where the waxer did such a poor job that the king became enraged, stripped him of his title, seized his land, and forbade him or his family from cutting their hair, shaving, or waxing. They were referred to as the Shamed Hairy Ones, and were called thus in English, the language of France's eternal enemy, as the king did not wish to sully his beautiful language when referring to such a disgrace.

As the years passed, the event became more and more extravagant. All the while, the lot of the masses grew ever worse. While the nobility was feasting and admiring their hairless forms, the commoners suffered. This all eventually lead to the French Revolution (not just the waxing, though that certainly played a role), as the people rose up against their rulers. To symbolize their united disdain for the nobility, people simply stopped cutting their hair, or shaving so to be the antithesis of their lords. Interestingly, this is where the stereotype that French women don't shave their armpits actually comes from, as they did grow their hair during this time as a bold act of defiance against the bourgeois and their decadent, hairless ways.

In time, the monarchy was overthrown, and France became a republic. The people enjoyed great freedom, and a new age was born where the French realized that they had the power to affect change, there were other forms of leadership besides a king, and one simply should not wax their entire body.

No, Americans Don't Clap After Every Meal, But the Romans Did!

For a few years now, there have been claims floating around the internet that Americans clap after every meal. So deep is their passion for food that they feel obliged to applaud after they eat. A satisfying dinner can expect anything from a polite round of golf claps, to an uproarious standing ovation, while something that fails to impress may find itself on the receiving end of the slow clap of derision. As compelling as this is, it may surprise you to learn that it is in fact not true. No, Americans do not clap at the end of a meal. However, did you know that the Romans did?

While the Empire spread throughout Europe and North Africa, projecting its influence far and wide, one serious challenge facing its people was flies gathering around at meal time. This was especially prevalent in the city of Rome, which, in ancient times, was surrounded by marshlands, an environment particularly prone to breeding all manner of pests. At first there would only be a few of these nuisances buzzing around, but by the end of a meal, when various meats' juices and vegetable scraps littered everyone's plates, there would be swarms of bugs in the room. Families would begin to clap furiously in order to kill or otherwise shoo away these insects, and it became quite the point of consternation in the capital.

Fortunately, as more trade routes opened with the East, exotic incense slowly found their way to Rome. Not only did these give off a pleasant aroma, but the light smoke that they produced staved off bugs. Noticing this, people began to light them during their meals as a means of keeping insects away while they ate. So happy was the populace that they would often continue to clap their hands together after dinner with jubilant expressions on their faces, exclaiming to one another, "Look! I clap and there are no flies!"

It was at this time that clapping became a means of showing approval for something. At first it was a nod to the success of the incense in keeping the bugs away, but over time it was carried over to other aspects of daily life. If an orator made an interesting speech in a gathering place, those listening would clap as a way of showing their appreciation. In the various amphitheaters, at the end of a play the audience began to slap their hands together to show how much they enjoyed the performance.

In only a short number of years, the practice became widespread. There was actually a groundswell of support for it as well, because up to this point the Romans didn't have a universally accepted non-verbal way of showing approval for something. The closest that they had up to this point was a thumbs up and thumbs down, popularized at many of the regional gladiatorial competitions throughout the realms. However, this was woefully inconsistent from one province to the next, with some places using the thumbs up to reflect a positive meaning, and a thumbs down for the negative, while neighboring cities did the opposite. It was all very confusing, and the public thirsted for a more uniform method of showing that they enjoyed something.

There were, of course, pockets of resistance. The occasional anti-clapping cult would establish itself, with regular, clandestine meetings in the night to discuss ways to thwart the tidal wave of support that the clap was enjoying. In rare cases, and usually toward the hinterlands of the Empire, small uprisings would erupt that required contingents of legionnaires to address. It took the better part of a decade before this sort of thing was totally quelled, after which time even the detractors begrudgingly accepted clapping as the only logical way forward.

So, there you have it. The true story of clapping and its Roman origins. Next time you wonder, "Why do Americans clap after they eat?" think not of that nation, but of one long faded into the annuls of history. If it wasn't for them, we might not have clapping in the first place.

Mass Public Transit in the Middle Ages

Over the last 150 years, we've seen a steady growth in the availability of public transportation systems. As urbanization became more and more common during the Industrial Revolution, the need for a means to move large numbers of people around a city became increasingly important. However, there have been earlier attempts at this throughout history.

During the Middle Ages, nobility and city councilors in the Kingdom of Castile's capital, Burgus, were examining ways of getting the populace from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible. Streets were clogged with merchant caravans taking goods to and fro, a situation exacerbated by the city being smack dab in between the Kingdoms of Navarre and Leon, of whom traded with one another extensively. Pedestrian travel was becoming increasingly difficult, and an alternative was needed. After much deliberation, the city's rulers came to the conclusion that taking to the air was the only viable option.

But how would they do this? The skies were strictly the domain of birds! Not so, said a group of local engineers. For centuries, man had been lobbing gigantic boulders through the air with the use of catapults and trebuchets, ever improving their range and accuracy. Surely, the technology could be adapted to accommodate human flight, if for only a short time.

At first, the temptation was to go with cannons, as they were the sexy, new technology of the time. However, then, just as now, there was one topic front and center in the realm of public discourse: climate change. There had been two years of drought in the region, and locals were concerned that perhaps God was angry with them for some reason. Was it really wise to use cannons, devices that require explosive, fiery, sulfuric compounds in their daily operation? Some felt that cannons were just too closely tied with the Prince of Darkness, and would only further enrage their Lord and Savior if they were implemented. So, the nobility yielded to public pressure, and opted for a more socially responsible, less blasphemous solution to mass transit.

Over the next two years, engineers began construction on a series of super catapults with corresponding nets at strategic locations throughout the city. After completion, and rigorous testing, adults were permitted to travel across the city for a nominal fee. While it was hoped that children could also use the system, their weight, and the tendency for their tunics to open mid-flight and act as a sail made it very difficult to calculate their trajectory, resulting in many of them being hurled into the sides of nearby buildings and rivers instead of their intended destinations. There was discussion of possibly tying several children together so that they weighed the same as an adult in order to deal with this issue, but it was ultimately scrapped.

In the early days, there were only a few catapults and nets throughout the city, placed in centralized hubs. Citizens would have to make their own way to these before they queued up, and were launched to wherever it was that they wanted to go. City officials grossly underestimated how popular this service would be, though, as hundreds, then thousands flocked to these spots. As time wore on, the catapult hubs became overwhelmed, and the nobility decided to administer a limited number of permits to local, well-to-do merchants allowing them to set up their own catapult services in order to help further meet demand. It made perfect sense to let these people with vast resources and apparent business acumen handle the much needed expansion of this service.

At first, this provided some very much needed relief for the city's catapult system. New locations were opened up, some even in suburban, residential areas, allowing far more people to soar to the market, town square, flour mill, and so forth with ease. Unfortunately, these private endeavours were not held to the same strict safety standards as the city's own network were. Moreover, the merchants seldom consulted with one another, or even the city, when scheduling or targeting their location. What followed was a series of disasters as scores of commuters smashed into each other in mid air, and soon it was raining humans. This spread panic, and mistrust throughout the city such that over time locals used the catapults less and less, opting for the slower, albeit safer roads on the ground.

And with that, Burgis' brief love affair with the skies ended, and humans gave up on hurling themselves heavensward as a means of travel, something not seen again until the Great San Francisco Circus Cannon Delivery Company of the mid 1860s.