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During the Black Death of 1347 to 1352, doctors wore bird-beaked masks filled with various herbs that were designed to protect the wearer from breathing poisoned air – or so we have been led to believe. German historians, however, have now called into question whether these long-nosed masks, much favoured by today’s Venetian Carnival revellers, really date from the medieval period.
The earliest records of herb-stuffed beaks date from the mid-17th century, and most depictions occur in satirical works, such as the poem Doctor Schnabel von Rom (‘Doctor Beak of Rome’) and the engraving of a plague doctor by Gerhart Altzenbach that accompanies it. These both date from 1656, the year in which the so-called ‘Naples plague’ killed up to 1,250,000 people in southern Italy. That is also the date of the first appearance of the mask-wearing commedia dell’arte character known as Il Medico della Peste (‘The Plague Doctor’).
Only two examples of such masks have survived. The one in the Deutsches Medizinhistorische Museum (the German Museum of Medicine History) in Ingolstadt was bought from an antiques dealer in 2002, while the other, in the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, was acquired ‘on the art market’ in 2006. Neither has a secure provenance and there is more than a suspicion that they might actually be theatrical masks or Carnival costumes, rather than prophylactic headgear.
Rural myths
Marion Ruisinger, the director of the Ingolstadt museum, has described the received wisdom on the subject of plague masks as an example of ‘contagious history’ – a story so popular that it spreads like the plague, even if ‘entirely wrong’. Sherds has been collecting further examples of contagious history over the summer, and its not entirely certain which ones have some substance to them and which ones belong to the category of folklore.
For example, while at one stately home, we were told that the circular, oval, or heart-shaped holes cut into the top of wooden window shutters enabled people to go for a pee in the night without having to search for the means to light a candle. Moonlight shining through the aperture provided sufficient light for anyone looking for a chamber pot in the dark.
The story was somewhat undermined by the fact that these windows opened into one of the show rooms, rather than a bedroom. Having said that, George Eliot, in The Mill on the Floss, describes two characters who ‘went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor, dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window, which rose above the closed shutter’, so there might be some truth in the tale after all.
Legs and paws
Then there was the suggestion that a dog with all four paws on the ground would signal which of the youngsters depicted in a painting was the eldest son and heir. Sherds rather suspects the inclusion of a dog – especially a hunting dog – is simply a statement of status and a reference to hunting as the sport of the nobility.
This theory does, however, belong to a family of folkloric beliefs about legs and feet. For example, it is often said that the position of the legs of the horse in an equestrian statue offers clues to the cause of the rider’s death: all four hooves on the ground means the rider died of natural causes, while one hoof raised means they died from wounds sustained in battle, and two means they died fighting. In reality, there are many examples of statues that contradict this entertaining and much-repeated story, and sculptors past and present aver that it is not true – the pose of the horse is dictated by technical practicalities and aesthetic judgement.
A related theory says that the crossed legs of a knightly effigy shows that the deceased had been on crusade, with crossed ankles indicating one crusade, crossed knees representing two, and crossed thighs meaning three. This idea was disproved in an article by Oliver Harris published in the 2010 edition of The Antiquaries Journal, which showed that there were many exceptions (knights with crossed limbs who had not been on crusade and vice versa) and that the artistic fashion for crossed legs that developed in the 13th century continued long after the Crusades had ceased.
Breeches and coats
Standing in front of a copy of van Dyck’s portrait The Five Eldest Children of Charles I (1637), we were assured that infants (in this case the future James II, shown aged four) wore dresses rather than trousers as a cunning form of disguise designed to prevent young boys from being kidnapped and held to ransom. This seems illogical – surely kidnappers would go for the heir (the future Charles II, then aged seven), who in the same picture was dressed in fine crimson breeches.
Shakespeare refers to ‘breeching’ – the occasion when a small boy was first dressed in breeches or trousers – in The Winter’s Tale, when King Leontes says ‘methoughts I did recoil/Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech’d/In my green velvet coat’ (‘coat’ here meaning a young boy’s gown or dress). Again, popular mythology has it that the reason for wearing a dress was to make toilet training easier – no fiddling with complicated fastenings. Truth or myth – who knows? And is it true that the equivalent rite of passage for young girls was to wear their hair ‘up’ and styled, by contrast with the long and natural hair of infancy?
Old myths and new
Another interesting suggestion that Sherds encountered this summer was that images of Hercules proliferated as a symbol of strength and stability during times of turmoil. Bearing in mind the Cerne Abbas Giant report in CA 365, where it was highlighted that William III was frequently associated in art with Hercules – more so than any other British leader – possibly as a sign of strength and stability after the Glorious Revolution, there could be some truth in this. Of course, sculptures depicting Hercules also became increasingly popular with artistocratic patrons as a result of the Grand Tour and the rise of neo-classicism.
We were told, too, that 18th-century corner chairs (with a diagonally oriented seat instead of square) were popular for libraries and studies because they made it easy for the sitter to turn and engage with others in the room without having to stand up or move the chair. And there was Sherds thinking that the whole point of a library or study was not to interact but to find peace and quiet to think and read.
Despite what one room steward confidently asserted, Sherds thinks it highly unlikely that horse chestnuts are so named because conkers were used to treat illness in horses. Surely conkers are toxic to horses? Yet many websites and natural history books repeat this idea. Is it not more likely that the ‘horse’ name signifies that the conkers are inferior to sweet chestnuts, by analogy with horseradish or cow parsley?
Equally counter-intuitive was the label on a tomb that said that the reason for bits being knocked off alabaster monuments was that alabaster mixed with ‘pure’ water was a cure for eye complaints. Alabaster is soluble in water if you have the patience to keep stirring it for a week or more, but Sherds wouldn’t want the resulting solution anywhere near his eyes, as it would cause chemical burning and any undissolved particles would scratch the eye’s delicate surface.
Finally, Sherds encountered a story in The Times – in a weather report of all unlikely places – that traced the origin of the term ‘black market’ to a storm that occurred in the Lake District on 26 March 1564. This uprooted an ash tree at Seathwaite Fell in Borrowdale, revealing deposits of shiny black lead-like material, now known to be graphite but still known as ‘lead’ when used in a pencil. Used in powdered form as a lubricant for lining moulds for making cannon- and musketballs, it became more costly than gold and it was the pillaging of this material by thieves and armed robbers that gave rise to the term ‘black market’. Credence was added to The Times report by reference to an Act of Parliament passed in 1752 making the theft of graphite a crime punishable by imprisonment or transportation. There seems to be just one source for this story – the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick – and Sherds is unable to find the relevant Act of Parliament, but it is a good yarn and that surely is the reason for all these myths and anecdotes: who can resist a plausible tale well told?
