Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 331: Walking With Humility
Episode Date: February 23, 2024This week we take a look at a very unique historical event: the infamous Bal des Ardents of 1393 Please support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
$150, I still wouldn't buy it.
What would you buy it for?
I think I'd send him a message and say,
I'll actually give you $850 to destroy this and send me the footage.
Burn it and send me the footage and I'll Venmo you $850.
Just getting on people, Facebook marketplace and harassing people about their... and send me the footage and I'll Venmo you $850.
Just getting on people,
Facebook marketplace and harassing people
about their...
Just dunking on people's
weak shit.
About their shit, yeah.
This shit sucks.
Are we recording?
I don't know.
We're always recording.
Wow.
Do you want me to hit record?
Sure.
Yeah, I'm hitting...
I got your ass.
I hit record fucking
60 seconds ago, bitch.
Damn, bro.
Just scrolling Facebook Marketplace and just saying, nice credenza.
Looks like absolute shit.
Oh, man.
Now, who in their right mind is going to buy your set of lawn gnomes for $600, you fucking freak?
Kill yourself.
This is like, weren't we talking yesterday about going to the bank?
Laughing all the way.
Yeah, laughing all the way to the bank.
Going to the bank and getting $300 out and then just pushing it right back across the teller's desk
and saying, I want to deposit $300.
Just keep doing that.
Now I would like to withdraw $300.
Just until they absolutely break.
They call security.
Like, what?
This is my money.
I'm just moving my money around.
Listen, am I not a valued customer
fidelity investments i'm making fucking money moves motherfucker and my money i'll do what the
fuck i want but like getting 300 out and taking one of the hundred dollar bills and then replacing
it with a hundred dollar bill in your wallet and then, it's not the same. It's a different $300.
It's a different $300.
Sir, what is the point of this?
What are you trying to prove?
It's like, I got money.
I got fucking money.
That's what we need to be. We need to be like
tricksters like that.
Yeah.
Like that
documentary, that dude, Mr. Organ or whatever.
No.
The guy that like, he like fucks with people with like cars and stuff.
Like towing, I think is his thing.
What does he do?
I've not seen it.
I've just heard about it.
But his name is Organ?
Yeah.
I was expecting something to do with Oregon.
No, like his last name is just Organ.
Interesting.
And he's like a sociopath that ties people up in small claims court for like...
Reminds me of Ellis Keys.
You know how Ellis Keys would do that?
Oh, yeah.
That kind of thing.
Why do people do that?
I don't know.
What's the little demon that makes us just take out 300, put it right back in?
That's because we're diabolical.
Fucking diabolical, bitch.
Like, why are you doing this?
Because I'm fucking diabolical.
And this is my fucking money.
I'm the joker, baby.
I'm the joker and I'm diabolical and this is my money
oh god
now I got anything else today sir
yeah just one more thing
one more thing
I might put this right back in
oh god
just like not
like the bank teller is like,
I would literally rather be robbed.
I would literally rather a bank robber come in.
Does anybody have a gun in here?
Please stick me up.
Anything besides this.
Shoot me in the leg.
You don't even have to have a getaway driver.
We won't stop you.
Or they're used to people like that,
and they just have a butt and they hit they say guy um withdrawn and immediately depositing and then just two guys
come just absolutely beat the hell out of you in the back like old vegas smash your hands with a
hammer yeah you'll think twice before taking that trail money and put it right back in won't you
you cut you show up at pub night with your boys and your fingers are all broken and for taking that trail money and put it right back in, won't you?
You show up at pub night with your boys
and your fingers are all broken.
Just mangled.
You did the bang thing again,
didn't you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Another day of unemployment.
I'm making it
everybody else's problem.
On the way out, your hands are just mangled you just say you guys are hiring
right right i would do you can do that if you work at a bank because like the thing is is like
i'd grew up with this dude who got fired from a pharmacy for stealing pills obviously and taking
them imagine that imagine During the opioid era.
You don't say.
I don't know how anybody worked at a pharmacy during those years and didn't steal.
I probably wouldn't even be stealing the good stuff.
I would be stealing antibiotics for my family.
These are for my family.
Now that's what you, because things are so bad, that's what you'd be doing.
I just need it for a rainy day.
No, just because I'm diabolical and I'm trying to contribute to antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Yeah, so you make your whole family take unnecessary antibiotics.
Exactly.
And everybody around you.
Exactly.
They're like, we have diarrhea all the time.
And I'm like, that's right.
That's your biome.
That's your biome disintegrating right before your eyes.
Your fucking gut flora and fauna.
Better eat some Activia yogurt, bitch.
Better get them good bugs built back up.
Here.
It's almost time for your six o'clock dose.
But here's the thing.
If you work at a bank and you take $300 on them, you say, that's my money.
Yeah.
That's my money.
It's in the bank.
And just say, listen, all I was trying to do was demonstrate to the manager here that
I understand the basic mechanics of banking.
I can do it.
I understand withdrawals.
I understand deposits.
And y'all had to go break my goddamn hands over it.
Oh, man.
We're sorry, Mr. Ray. Yeah. Here uh here here here's the lollipop would you like a job i was just trying to demonstrate i know
basic ledger principles ledger principles yeah is that where ledger yeah i don't know i took
accounting in high school but um i didn't really do much in there.
I just looked up pictures of soccer players.
What?
I don't know.
There was computers in there,
and so I would look up pictures of Diego Maradona,
and he'd be scoring goals.
And I'd be like, this is cool.
Dude, this was before YouTube.
The most you got was E-bombs World,
and there's no way our fucking computers
at the high school would let us do that.
Yeah, or the Hun. So the best you could do is look up pictures i know this
sounds really stupid but like these back in the day that's what you did you looked up pictures
of your favorite stuff yeah your favorite ball player yeah like there he is he's swinging the
bat and then you had to imagine in your brain what it was like when he was actually scoring the goal
i like i didn't do that, too.
Yeah, dude.
That's what you did.
You were like, wow, Diego Maradona.
Look at him.
He's so cool.
Yeah, he's so cool.
He does cocaine.
He has Che Guevara on his arm.
That's right.
So that's what I did in accounting.
I looked up pictures of, like, Tool, the band.
The band Tool, Diego maradona yeah and i'm trying to think of
what else you google hole picks whole thinking you're gonna get like courtney loves band
oh yeah like you said you could have plausible deniability yeah if your teacher was like why
who's okay who who the fuck was was looking at hole picks on the computer again?
Courtney Love?
Really?
Yeah.
That's what you're looking for, Mr. Ray?
That's what you're looking for?
That's bullshit.
Man.
I got one for you.
Just a little hypothetical I need you to run with real quick.
Diabolical Bob Dylan. Diabolical Bob Dylan.
Diabolical.
Okay.
We can't go down to Diabolical?
No, hold on a second.
Just one more time before we go.
Just so everybody knows, we recorded an over-hour episode
where it was just us trading the worst imitations of Bob Dylan,
Jimmy Page, and Dave Matthews
as if they were respectively the President of the United States,
the Prime Minister of England, and the U.S. Secretary of State.
It would have worked if you had headphones
and if we had done it last night.
You're right.
We were just on two different frequencies earlier.
It's so hard when one person has headphones and one doesn't.
When we record here, if you can't hear the ghost of Joe Diffie,
you might as well just sit it out.
You got to just remind his old pal.
Hey, man, it's a solo episode.
I'll be in here.
So, listen, it's Diabolical Bob Dylan.
Okay. And he's giving his whole family
unnecessary antibiotics to spur along the development of super bugs okay all right
jake
why'd you leave the soil why'd you leave the toilet seat down again, Jay?
Why'd you leave the toilet?
It's like, you know I've got the liquid shits,
and I come running in here,
and I just expect to put my ass down,
and I sit down on the closed toilet,
and I just shit all over the top of the toilet.
Why'd you leave the toilet seat down?
Boy, what if Bob Dylan as a dad was like a mean hillbilly dad but he was like boy you know he's like well he's like boy you know you're supposed to take your antibiotics. You know that we shit 30 times a day.
You know no one has a gut biome.
You know this is totally normal.
Every family around us is doing it.
They're shitting too.
It's like you get in trouble.
It's like Jacob Dillon goes to his boy's house his friend's house and he's like he's like his friend shits and he leaves the toilet seat up and he uh he puts the
toilet seat down and he's like what are you doing he's like or he's like what are you doing what are
you doing you're putting the toilet seat down and he's like that's what you do after you take a shit
you take and he's like and he's like no we'll get in trouble and he's like what's wrong jacob he's like
and he starts crying he's like in my house my pa my pa beats me if i leave the toilet seat up
we're down if i leave the toilet seat down
he needs quick he needs quick access to it.
My dad needs quick access.
He turns the engine and the engine doesn't turn, if you know what I mean. i shouldn't have went down this road
oh my god jacob dylan he stumbles down to the basement one day and sees his dad's diabolical plot.
It's just diagrammed how he's going to create all these super bugs starting in his own household.
Oh, my God.
This joke here is Bob Dylan is a hillbilly.
An abusive hillbilly father.
An abusive hillbilly father who's trying to seed in the world antibiotic-resistant superpowers.
Also, he's friends with Hosni Mubarak.
Oh, fuck, I'm sweating.
Maybe he's working for the Egyptians.
Good God almighty, dude'm sweating. Maybe he's working for the Egyptians.
Good God almighty, dude.
Fuck.
Let's... We gotta pivot out of...
If we do another hour of Bob Dylan...
I don't know.
Would that break you?
Yeah.
Yeah, it would.
Oh, man.
Sorry, I went down that road.
Oh, so, okay.
Dude, I had something to read today.
I've been saving this for a day where we have no content.
And, well, by God, today's that day.
Today's that day.
Because I've not read the news.
I've not been reading the news.
Wow.
Uninformed.
How does that make you feel?
Well, I think you need to go over to your house and take that sign out of your front yard.
In this house, we read the news.
We believe in science.
We read the news.
In this house, we read the news.
In this house, we read the news. In this house, we read the news. In this house, we read the news.
In this
house, we breed superbugs.
We do two things in this house.
We read the news.
We shit with the
toilet up.
We read superbugs.
We write the finest songs
of the 20th and 21st centuries.
This is, okay, I wanted to do,
I told you this might fall into the category of Profiles in Courage,
but it's not really that.
Profiles in Courage.
For those of you listening,
which I'm going to assume is 90% of you
who don't know what Profiles in Courage is,
that's an ancient bit we used
to do as the trill billies we're pulling them the old ones out one by one just see if any of them
are still relevant yeah i mean i'm getting old i can't be doing fucking old it's not a bit it's
segment that's the word segment yeah it's an old segment yeah you know it's different from a segment
we need new segments but this thing is um this isn't really so much a profile of a know it's different from a segment we need new segments but this thing is um this isn't
really so much a profile of a person it's a profile of a specific time and an event okay
anatomy of an event isn't that a movie right now anatomy of a fall yeah and the woman's like do not
blame me for your failures you create a world where you hate yourself and you make all
kinds of excuses for being a failure and i'm watching this and i'm like damn that does damn
she says she's spitting she's spitting and that doesn't apply to my life at all no no i definitely
other men sure but me me definitely not wow They should not have shown that clip if they wanted people to watch that movie, because
I'm going to see that clip and I'm going to be like, ooh.
I'm going to sit that one out.
Yeah, I don't need myself reflected.
That's the thing, though.
I think that guy's a murderer in the movie.
So does that mean I'm going to be a murderer?
No, I watched it.
He's not a murderer.
Oh, he's not?
I didn't mean to ruin that for you.
Well, that's good.
a murder. Oh, he's not.
I didn't mean to ruin that for you.
Well, that's good.
My main takeaway from that movie,
the French legal system is absolutely insane.
I could have told you that.
Absolutely insane. Hey, brother, that's relevant to our topic today. Oh, shit.
Yeah. You want to know why?
French jurisprudence
by diabolical Bob Dylan.
Getting your hands broken
for just exchanging some cash.
This will give you some insight into why the French legal system is the way it is.
No kidding.
It's the origins.
Okay.
We're going to...
Okay.
Trillbilly origins.
That's what this new segment is.
Trillbilly.
Origins.
Origins.
I got it.
Hold on a second.
Trillbilly origins.
Origins. we'll do origins
today
in a world
you know
it's a new
segment
it's called origins
because I've been
trying to
I've been reading a
book about Neanderthals
and I want to
interview the author
so I'm trying to do
origins
because you're trying
to see what all the
fuss is about
I'm trying to get to
the bottom of everything
origins
of everything
so this is a new leaf I'm turning a new leaf I'm moving see what all the fuss is i'm trying to get to the bottom of everything origins of everything yeah
so this is a new leaf i'm turning in there i'm moving and i'm doing new segments okay
i'm doing new segments and i'm moving i'm moving out of the house
you can take jacob you're on your own
like a rolling stone Take Jacob. You're on your own.
Like a rolling stone.
Okay.
What this is called, I'm going to butcher the pronunciation.
Are you imagining Bob Dylan abandoning his family?
I can see it in your head, what you're imagining.
Bob Dylan abandoning his family.
Put some hair on your chest, boy.
On the ways of the world.
Because you have to now.
Okay.
All right.
Jettison Bob Dylan for me.
Okay, actually don't.
You're going to need him for this.
He will be the subject of a Troubilly's Origins segment at some point.
I don't know what the origin... What would you have to look at to where Bob Dylan would be the origins of?
Like American music, obviously, but like something else.
Bob Dylan's always been.
He's just...
Before I got here, I was just kind of floating above the water.
Just chilling in the ether.
The vacuum of space.
The world was without form and void, and there I was.
Okay, finally, this is what I want to cover.
It is called The Ball of the Burning Men men or the ball of the wild men.
I was reading a book by Barbara Tuchman called a distant mirror.
Okay.
The calamity of 14th century.
The book is,
it's interesting.
Apparently though,
a lot of the history in it is pretty dated and antiquated.
So don't take it as like a reliable source on the middle ages.
Um,
but it is fun.
And this was in it so uh
i just went to the wikipedia page and the wikipedia page actually types it off very well
types it up very well um what this is called the ball the ball the ball they are dense
the ball they are the Ball of the Wild Men.
Okay.
It was a masquerade ball held on the 28th of January, 1393 in Paris.
At which...
The year the music died.
Truly the year the music died.
At which Charles VI of France performed in a dance with five members of the French nobility.
I'm not going to give it away what happened yet, okay?
Did something very tragic happen to this event?
What happened?
Are you going to save that until the end?
I'll save it to the end.
Let's start with some background, all right?
Okay.
Charles VI.
Okay.
Charles VI was crowned king of France in 1380 after his father, Charles V.
You can probably pretty much deduce that, right?
We all remember our first coronation.
And he was crowned king.
He was one of those child kings.
Okay.
They all fought terribly.
Yeah.
Well, this is the thing.
And I pointed this out before.
The thing about monarchy and about feudalism and why eventually people wanted to do this whole democracy thing,
republic democracies, is because sometimes you get the roll of the dice and you get a bad king,
an insane king, a mad king. A mad king. you get a bad king an insane king a mad king a mad
king a diabolical king a diabolical king with perhaps uh intent of producing biological weapons
at home that's exactly right and so um that was one of the cons of feudalism which is funny now because we now have a president who we have who is clearly
mad ostensibly a mad king ostensibly a mad king and he refuses to like step aside like we're in
a situation where we can't influence that in any way we're we're we are solely and individually
at the whims of one person. Yeah.
Nothing we can do about it.
So it's kind of futile in a way.
But you know what I mean?
I mean, we can not vote for him, I guess, but who knows.
Which we won't.
Yeah.
You know, we won't be voting for him.
But in this situation, when this would happen back in the day,
they would have regents set up around the young king yeah and those regents
were generally like you know the uncles if you were an uncle back in the day had it made you
had a great gig royal uncle yeah great gig uncles they're spit on in the spas today
um and so back then you know you could uh sort of steer the direction of the monarchy, of the court.
Yeah.
Within two years.
Yeah, your dad's shifty brother.
Yes.
Particularly if your dad was the king.
All the time had this, you know, was meddling.
Well, that's the thing.
You think your uncle is shifty now?
Imagine if your uncle was the brother of the deceased king and presumably
himself you know maybe third or fourth in line to the throne or something exactly that's a danger
that's a dangerous place for a man to be is third in line for the crown that's a man that's a man
that's playing with house money you're right left to lose. First or second in line, it's pretty stable.
You might get it
at some point.
Third in line.
You've got nothing to lose.
You are throwing out
all the stops.
So within two years
of Charles VI
taking the crown,
Philip of Burgundy,
one of the regents,
described by historian
Robert Connect
as one of the most
powerful princes in Europe,
became sole regent to the young king
after Louis of Anjou pillaged the royal treasury
and departed the campaign in Italy.
You could do that back then.
Because the royal treasury was a thing.
It was like a vault.
And you were like, you know,
the Scrooge McDuck or whatever,
fucking diving in the coins.
Hey, Chuck, I'm gonna pillage some jewels and abscond idly see you about never you rotten motherfucker
charles is right right me when i'm in line for the crown charles's other two uncles john of berry
and louis louis of bour, showed little interest in him.
We've got a bourbon.
A bourbon has been spotted on the wing.
A bourbon.
A bourbon.
In 1387, the 20-year-old Charles VI assumed sole control of the monarchy and immediately dismissed his uncles and reinstated the marmosetis his
father's traditional counselors marmoset that's a great name do you want to be a marmoset
to describe the position more i will see if it's for me it's uh basically a marmoset would be like
you are in the king's cabinet you're as you're as trusted confidant conciliar you're yes you are in the king's cabinet. You're his trusted... A confidant?
A conciliar.
Yes, you are his counselors.
I would ask if we could change the name to conciliar.
Not a fan of marmosets?
I like it.
It sounds like a mammal, like a ferret.
Yeah, you sound like some sort of small marsupial.
I'd rather be a conciliar.
That's right.
Unlike his uncles, the Marmosets wanted peace
with England. Less taxation and
a strong, responsible central government.
Policies that resulted in a
negotiated three-year truce with
those limey bastards,
the English.
And the Duke of Bury was stripped
of his post as governor of Languedoc
because of his excessive taxation.
So yeah,
these guys,
they wanted less taxes,
fewer taxes.
Yeah.
Like when Aaron Lewis is singing,
above my house
there flies two flags,
one's red,
one's blue.
One's red,
one's blue.
Yeah.
The other has a little snake on it
and it's my penis
And I've got it tattooed
I've got it tattooed
I've got my penis tattooed on my neck
Right here on my throat
It's been a while
Lama Mama said
Well I'm just a simple mama said
I advise Charles VI.
I dismissed his regents without cause.
People called me a despot.
My uncles hate me, and that's probably right.
Okay.
On a hot August day.
Oh, wait, wait, wait.
I'm sorry.
I got ahead of myself.
In 1392, Charles suffered the first in a lifelong series of attacks of insanity,
manifested by a, quote,
insatiable fury at the attempted assassination of the Constable of France
and leader of the Marmosets, Olivier de Clisson.
Okay, let me ask you a question here when we're talking
about talking about temporary moments of insanity or at first does it go into okay at first he had
her full descent into madness you know as i read this story yeah sometimes when you read about
people's insanity yeah you um you can see yourself in there in some ways.
Right, right, right.
You can see yourself in the House of Bourbon
in the 1300s.
I'm gonna make a confession.
You've often thought about yourself.
I've often thought about myself
in the House of Bourbon in the 14th century.
Or like Howard Hughes,
like pissing in jars,
growing out my fingernails,
you know, codeine syringes stuck in my arms. Did you know they found that? Or like Howard Hughes, like pissing in jars, growing out my fingernails. Yeah. You know.
Yeah.
Coding syringes stuck in my arms.
Did you know they found that when they cured him? I thought he was a germaphobe.
Yeah, he was.
But paradoxically, I think that you can be, if you're such a germaphobe and you never
leave, like you don't see your, you don't see your accumulating shit as germs.
Yeah.
I think it's more, I think it's agoraphobia but you
say it's germaphobia okay what that had to do with charles the sixth oh where i was going with them
like sometimes you see you read about insane people and you're like well i'm pretty insane
well you know yeah well yeah or somebody's like get a load of this wacky story, and then you just feel very convicted, like, isn't that crazy?
That's weird, man.
Yeah.
What a weird deal.
What a weird guy.
This was one of those where I think what it is
is you try to imagine the subjectivity of a crazy person like this,
and you can't even penetrate the surface of it
because what it's caused by is generation after generation
after generation of inbreeding.
Right.
And so you can't really imagine what that would be like,
what kind of dark, fucked-up, David Fincher, grimy-ass existence that would be.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine that at all.
grimy ass existence that would be.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine that at all.
Just come from a place notorious for such practice.
I have no frame of reference for that.
Dude, I'm probably inbred too.
You're among company.
It's all right.
That's all right.
We're proudly inbred.
We are proudly inbred. We are proudly
inbred.
Here's how,
if you've ever
wondered if you're
the product of
a little bit of
that,
consider if you
have any family
that have been
here since the
1500s.
And you most
certainly.
I mean,
my family's
probably been
here since the
very beginning,
if I had to guess.
Yeah.
I know there's a lot of app studies people see right now.
They're like, oh, my God, how could you?
How could you perpetuate negative stereotypes of the region?
Well, by that, I mean I'm like Bob Dylan.
I mean, I've just been here.
Oh, I was just there.
Yeah, I don't mean that like we were around and like
you know marrying our cousins or anything what i mean is that we've always been we've always been
here us two and bob billen that's right and god when he was just a spirit floating above the water
dude that is a negative that is a bad stereotype to perpetuate if eternal beings oh yeah i'm sorry
uh sprites you know you can't be perpetuating that stuff dude sorry kind of eternity it's Eternal beings. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Sprites.
You can't be perpetuating that stuff, dude.
I'm sorry.
Kind of fucked up.
Eternity.
People are going to feel self-conscious that they're not eternal, too.
That's right.
That's true, yeah.
I'm sorry, you bunch of finite corporeal motherfuckers.
I live long after you're dead.
Okay, anyways.
The king, Charles VI,
convinced that the assassination attempt on Clisson's life
was also an act of violence
against himself and the monarchy.
Charles quickly planned
a retaliatory invasion of Brittany
with the approval of the Marmosets
and then departed.
On a hot August day outside Le Mans,
where another tragedy happened, not what 500 years later the who could forget the le mans massacre have you seen
okay don't look it up don't i'm not don't no you can't do that what what what are we not supposed
to look at uh there's video of the Le Mans disaster, the 1955 Le Mans disaster.
Oh.
I don't recommend it.
Okay.
Okay.
I'll set that one out.
Steve McQueen was a...
I think he produced a...
Didn't they make a movie about Le Mans?
Yeah.
With Steve McQueen.
Yeah.
What is that?
Well, on a
hot August day outside Le Mans,
accompanying his forces on the way to
Brittany, without warning, Charles
drew his weapons and charged his own
household knights, including his brother,
Louis I, Duke of Orléans.
This was in, I'm assuming
what could only be described as one of those temporary moments of insanity.
Insanity, yes.
He had a close relationship with his brother, and yet he charged him crying,
Ford against the traitors, they wish to deliver me to the enemy.
He killed four men!
Including his brother?
Four of his own men, not his brother.
Before his chamberlain grabbed him by the waist and subdued him,
after which he fell into a coma that lasted
for four days. Few believed
he would recover. His uncles,
the dukes of Burgundy and Barry,
took advantage of the king's illness
and quickly seized power, reestablished
themselves as regents, and dissolved the
fucking Marmoset Council. Motherfuckers.
Get the fuck out of here.
Let me ask you a question.
Get the fuck out of Michael Pepperoni'm asking you a question so michael pepperoni so charles
goes into a coma yes wakes up four days later and it's like
stretches feeling rested after four days of sleep says now to go check in my trusted advisors
and it's just his brothers it's uncle her uncle's just sitting there saying, have a seat, Charles.
Have a seat.
That's right.
We got rid of the fucking mama sets.
Fucking Marseille Bill fucks.
These fucking mutts.
Get the fuck out of here.
You think you can direct the direction of fucking France, huh?
Without us, not likely.
Okay.
So the comatose king was returned to Le Mans where Guillaume de Harsigny,
a venerated and well-educated 92-year-old physician,
was summoned to treat him.
God damn.
Oh, man.
After Charles regained...
92, man.
Let that man just kind of live his days out.
92 in what was that, 1392?
That means he was 50 years old when the Black Death happened.
Dude, this guy would,
this guy, seriously,
would be like,
that's like 132 in today's time.
And not only that,
you're right,
it's like 132 in today's time
because he lived through
the most calamitous plague
of human history.
Yeah.
The bubonic plague.
He lived through it to be 92.
Jesus.
That's crazy.
God.
Wow, there's a mummy of him.
Oh, my God.
Of the doctor or the king?
God damn.
Of the doctor.
Well, that's not a mummy.
It's an engraved tomb.
Look at him.
He's just chilling.
I will be honest with you.
I've seen the living look worse yeah that's true
man that's really crazy you're right that would be like if someone was 150 now yeah um it's like
how they have dog years you got to do middle ages yeah that's true after charles regained
consciousness and his fever subsided he was returned to Paris, moving slowly from castle to castle with periods of rest in between.
Late in September, Charles was well enough to make a pilgrimage of thanks to Notre Dame near Laon, after which he returned to Paris.
I bet slipping into a coma in the 14th century was, without any modern medical intervention but scary as hell well here's the
thing this is what i've worried wondered about yeah he slipped into surely a psychosomatic coma
right he killed four of his own people in a temporary moment of insanity why would he slip
no you know the physiological cause of the coma no here's what he's doing you think he's faking
i know what he's doing he's playing possum faking? I know what he's doing. He's playing possum?
He's trying to see who's preying on his downfall.
So he pretends to be in a coma
for four days.
Just to see if those
rat bastard uncles of his
try to double cross him.
It's like when you're 16
and you're like,
I just want to die.
And then in your head
you're like,
but I would go to my funeral
to see who comes.
To see if they get cured.
Yeah. That's what they get cured. Yeah.
That's what he's doing.
Yeah.
He's doing the middle-age equivalent of that.
Because, like, surely, you're right.
Like, surely, like, a coma would be caused by some sort of head injury or, like...
Yeah, there had to be a physiological cause, one would assume.
Yeah, like an epidemiological, like some sort of bacteria infection, something like that.
They did say he had a fever, so maybe he...
Maybe the fever made him act
like a mad king i think you're right there could be a physio there could be epidemiological cause
to this like he had syphilis or something and it made him crazy probably that's the most likely
origin but that's interesting you say that because that's not what that was not what i
envisioned when i first read this what i envisioned when I first read this. What I envisioned when I first read this was someone who was under so much stress.
I say I'm reading my own life into it.
I am myself Charles VI.
They were under so much stress that he acted out.
He acted a fool.
I've acted a fool.
That's what I'm saying i read this
kind of stuff and i'm like man i could i could kill four of my boys yeah i'd easily kill four
of my boys with no remorse um charles's sudden onset of insanity was seen by some as a sign of
divine anger and punishment and by others as the result of sorcery modern historic historians
speculate that he may have been experiencing
the onset of paranoid schizophrenia.
Charles continued to be mentally fragile,
believing he was made of glass.
And according to historian Desmond Steward,
running howling like a wolf down the corridors of the royal palaces.
Let me ask, let me just, before we go down the road of armchair diagnoses okay
i have to ask a very serious question charles happened to be a drunk i don't think he was
the teetotaler huh i think so okay interesting yeah yeah i just want to eliminate a lot of
more plausible causes before we start saying now this man was a well there's here's
something that's interesting right yeah um when i was doing when i was reading about this
something that i a very fascinating side tangent to go down yeah is the history of the
concept of melancholy so, at various times throughout human history,
sometimes melancholy
is seen as a mental illness, right?
Like, as a depressive thing.
But in other times,
such as the, let's see,
English cultural movement,
at other
times, melancholy is seen as cool.
So people will intentionally
affect melancholy. Like as cool. So people will intentionally affect melancholy.
Like, you know, England in the 80s during the shoegaze era.
Yeah.
Very cool era to be melancholy.
Melancholy is not in right now.
Right?
I would have to say.
Well, it's in, but nobody thinks it's cool or is having a good time with it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I see.
Yeah, I'm trying to see.
It's in in the sense that, yes, it's here.
In ancient Rome, they thought it might have been a cause of cancer.
Hey, probably not too far off there.
During the later 16th and early 17th century a curious
cultural and literary cult of melancholia arose in england and uh i think that's the thing i think
the english have always been really into it yeah like we should be melancholy
the sun doesn't ever come out in this godforsaken island. Maybe we'll just make this our thing.
Anyway, the only reason I bring it up is because
certain words we had for insanity
and bad physiological stuff back in the day
eventually evolved to become like sort of
ideologically neutered in a way.
Right.
Well, you said he would run howling and stuff like that.
Is that the origin of lunatic?
Like dogs howling at the moon?
At the moon.
I think it is.
I think it literally is.
But that, I'm just saying, I say literally.
I don't mean literally because I don't know.
I don't literally know.
I don't literally know.
I would surmise.
Contemporary chronicler John Friesar.
Okay.
This is who we know a lot of about this from
barbara tuchman quotes him a lot in her book yeah um okay and the first this you preface this with
none of this person's scholarship that's worth a fuck but i think it's more like
but enjoy it as a piece of historical fiction well here's the thing
historiography on the
middle ages is complicated because like people throw around terms like dark ages and middle
ages and when they say that they imply that these were degraded times like they were worse off times
than ancient times yeah but i don't think that's necessarily true and i'm pretty sure that historians
also agree like you know that's a misconception yeah
like maybe politically the forms were more degraded but like technologically they had
much greater advances than like the ancient world yeah well speaking of the forms what
was you telling me the other day that the greeks were dumb about uh oh but that was the pre-Hellenic Greeks,
the pre-Hellenic invasion Greeks.
They were matriarchies.
And so men were publicly degraded and devalued.
And they weren't attributed with causing pregnancy.
Just like today because of wokeness.
Because of wokeness.
It was not thought that men caused pregnancy. They thought that things like the wind and stuff caused pregnancy.
Yeah, that's what it is, buddy.
Yeah.
Which is an amazing out.
People talk about matriarchy.
Baby, baby.
I've not been stiff.
That's just the wind.
These woke guys talk about matriarchy like it'd be a bad thing.
Did they not realize how badass it would be?
You're not beholden to anything, anyone.
You could just go.
You could just hand the reins over.
And listen, it would be a golden age if you had a humiliation fetish.
Exactly.
You'd be not cotton.
But yeah, you would never have to do a paternity test but it's the wind that baby don't look like it's the freaking wind
i'm swimming wind babies um but uh i got that from robert graves's book on the greek myth
mythologies what he's trying to do in that book is he's trying to show how the certain
social arrangements are reflected
in the mythologies.
So, for example,
the pre-Hellenic mythological features
mirror the matriarchal conditions
in which they were created.
So there is no God Zeus figure
in those early mythologies.
It's like the mother goddess,
Euryneme, and she's,
you know,
she claps air. Is this before the Pantheon?
This is Pantheon post-Hellenic?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was.
Okay.
There were several invasions of Greece.
Like, there was a Hellenic invasion
and the Achaean invasion.
I mean,
I don't remember.
I remember them all,
but...
Yeah.
Anyways.
Our buddy Charles VI.
Back to our buddy Charles VI who thought he was made of
glass and would run howling like a wolf down the corridors this is something i've wondered about
i want to tell you something i've been that drunk before
i have i have i had trust me a group of my friends walk into my room one night and seen me
dance naked in front of the closet door.
They had sliding doors, but they were mirrored.
And they said, this is where I got the term temporary moment of insanity.
I was sitting there dancing.
They said, you look like, what's that little, I forget what, old TV show from the 60s.
You're just dancing in front of that.
And when we asked you why you were doing that, you just stopped and looked at us and said,
I guess I was having a temporary moment of insanity.
And then you just went and laid down.
What was the name of that?
Wasn't it called like Train or something?
Party Train?
Soul Train?
Was it Soul Train?
Are you talking about Soul Train?
No, I was thinking.
I think I was thinking about
what's happening.
Rewriting.
Dude, I know what you're...
What's my uncle's name for?
I told you this the other day.
I went to a party one time.
One of those things I think about all the time.
Went to a party of this girl
I went to high school with
and this was when I was in community college.
Wasn't in college.
I was in community college. And I in college. I was in community college.
And I went to a party in Lubbock.
Blacked out.
Apparently threw up on a wall.
Woke up in a room I'd never seen before.
Had no recollection of how I got there.
This was before you had maps on your phone.
But post-Hellenic.
This was post-Hellenic.
Just so we got the time frame right yeah uh walked out nowhere no
idea where literally had to go down to the nearest street corner and like look at the
street signs yeah and reorient me reorient myself that way yeah and then like stumble on like a
sunday morning at like 103 degrees texas heat like back to my truck like 40 blocks away and no i have no
recollection or idea how you got people have no idea how good they have it now yeah like you can
just so we're just so we're clear this was sometime after the peloponnesian wars but before
russia's invasion of ukraine those two landmark events right Right. Sometime in between those two. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Our buddy Charles running through the halls made of glass.
During the worst of his illness, Charles was unable to recognize his own wife,
Isabeau of Bavaria, demanding her removal when she entered his chamber.
But after his recovery, Charles made arrangements for her to hold guardianship of their children.
She eventually became...
He's like, listen, I'm howling at the moon
and probably made a glass.
I'm not a fit father.
I'm not fit for fatherhood.
He just comes to grips with the fact
that his grip on reality is tenuous at best.
Okay, so the 92 year old physician uh he refused all pleas and
offers of riches to remain and left paris and ordered the courtiers to shield charles from
the duties of government leadership so the 92 year old washed his hands of it the poor bastard
thinks he's made of glass he's too guys listen everybody's like no no no but we have to have a
king and he's this 92 year old guy's like listen Guys, listen. Everybody's like, no, no, no, but we have to have a king. And this 92-year-old guy's like, listen, I've been around a long time.
I was 50 years old during the time of the Black Death.
And I made it through that.
Okay?
I'm not going out like this.
Let me tell you this.
This man is clinically insane.
Okay?
He probably feared for his life.
He probably thought Charles would snap or something yeah i'm
trying to make it to 100 here i got eight more years and then i'm good listen do yourselves a
favor run for the hills he told that would be that would be great advice he would be very
prescient in making that advice as you will find out in just a moment.
He told the King's advisors to be careful not to worry or irritate Charles,
burden him with work as little as you can.
Pleasure and forgetfulness will be better for him than anything else to surround Charles with the festive atmosphere.
This is really,
truly the most tragic element of what's about to happen.
Okay.
Keep this moment in mind.
Okay.
This is the tragedy.
He needs to advise the courtiers to surround
Charles with a festive atmosphere and to
protect him from the rigor of governing.
The court turned to elaborate amusements
and
extravagant fashions.
Isabeau and her sister-in-law
wore jewel-laden dresses
and elaborate braided hairstyles
coiled into tall shells
and covered with wide double henons
that reportedly required doorways
to be widened to accommodate
them. That's a
headdress, by the way. I can appreciate
that, being so committed
to fashion that you actually have to change
the architecture to accommodate the drip.
committed to fashion that you actually have to change the architecture to accommodate the drip actually we're gonna have to knock out this wall if i'm if i'm gonna wear this fit tonight
and i'm gonna wear this we have to keep him amused otherwise we're all dead oh god here's what i wonder at times like this like okay he's asleep he's asleep
everybody the the regents the marmosets the courtesans uh the court jester everybody
in here together we got a meeting
we have to kill this bastard.
We have to put a pill over his face while he's sleeping.
It wouldn't be hard
because if he thinks he's made of glass.
Yeah.
That's what you do.
You say,
Charles, if you come any further,
I swear to God,
I'm gonna throw a brick through you
and shatter you.
And he's gonna be like,
oh, okay.
And all of a sudden, you are the de facto king of France at that point.
Just because you know he's afraid of being shattered.
That's right.
Well, it does have applications for our own time, I guess.
If you do consider Biden to be the mad king who has regions.
And basically, all these liberals out here caping for him are the people saying,
no, we have to create a festive atmosphere for him.
Yes.
And if that's the case, what happens next will be a perfect metaphor for perhaps what is about to happen.
Actually, now that I'm reading this, I didn't read all these parallels into it when I first read this.
The reason I didn't was because that's what Barbara Tuchman was trying to do
and that's kind of why the book is kind of hacky.
She's like, it's a distant mirror.
It reflects a light on human nature.
And it's like, does it?
If we, let me just say this, folks.
This is how you'll know the end is nigh.
If we see Dr. Jill Biden
dressed up like somebody from Hunger Games. That's how you'll know the end is nigh. If we see Dr. Jill Biden dressed up like somebody from Hunger Games.
That's how you know.
That's how you know.
Biden's brother, though.
Didn't Biden's brother recently get caught in some healthcare scam?
No, I think he got caught on Grindr showing his cum.
Wait, Biden's brother is gay i think so that's tight thank you i think he was on grinder okay well then that's pretty cool
however i think he did have one brother and it might have been the gay well and you know those
two things aren't mutually exclusive you can still do crimes and be on grind and be gay yeah it's
true um well his, one of his brothers
did do some healthcare scam.
So that's the thing.
To
support the nefarious
uncle's theory of
history. Nefarious uncle's
theory of history. There you go.
Scar from
Lion King. Yes.
Many shifty uncles
Throughout history
I forgot about Scar
Yeah
Little bastard
Brother
Motherfucker
And then he just
Yeah
I'll never forget that
He sinks his claws
Into Mufasa's claws
And then throws his ass off
Into the wildebeest
And then that famous line
Not so mighty anymore Mufasa
Yeah
And then he goes and buys simba cigarettes
that's what he should have done it's like baby billy fraser i'm your daddy now
no you're not mighty mufasa no i'm your daddy now oh man oh come on eli come on come on eli
i'm basically your daddy now Oh man I've been working on my
Uncle Baby Billy
Bible Bonkers
Uncle Baby please get back on TV
Instead of singing for a bunch of
Basic Christian
Sun Bums
Well come on Eli
Let's just do the rest of the episode.
Just us.
Baby Billy.
All right.
Come on, Charles.
The common people.
The common people thought the extravagance is excessive, yet they loved their young king,
who they called Charles le Bien-Aimé, the Well-Beloved.
Blame for unnecessary excess and expense was directed at the foreign queen,
who was brought from Bavaria at the request of Charles' uncles.
Classic patriarchal bullshit.
Topped from a Bavarian bitch hit different.
That's right.
Neither Isabeau nor her sister-in-law Valentina,
daughter of the ruthless Duke of Milan,
were well-liked by either the court or the people.
Friseau wrote in his chronicles that charles's uncles were content to allow the frivolities because so long as the queen and the duke d'orleans danced they were not dangerous or even
annoying okay now we come to the disaster now we come to the part of the program where all the bad
things we covered all the hints of potential calamity.
I just want to point something out.
Four men are already dead, so this is saying something.
Already four men are dead.
On the 28th of January.
The doctor said, I'm getting the hell out of here.
I'm getting the fuck out.
He knew.
He knew something was about to happen.
On the 28th of January, 1393,
Isabeau held a masquerade at the Hotel Saint-Paul
to celebrate the third marriage of her lady-in-waiting,
Catherine de Faustavarin.
Barbara Tuckman explains that a widow's remarriage
was traditionally an occasion for mockery and tomfoolery,
often celebrated with a charivari.
I got, so, well, by that you mean there was a bunch of guys dressed up like
the pied piper of hamlin and they would do uh tartuffe the spry wonder dog-esque
middle ages humor yes at this poor woman yes she was they wear those masks with the big noses you
had to hold up to your face they did wildly inconvenient they done i know because you can't like dance really you're getting one of those in your ear
yeah i'm gonna say i'm gonna sit my nose down i'm gonna come back in there no no no no no
you have to don't swith it um okay the charivari were characterized by all sorts of license, disguises, disorders, and loud blaring of discordant music and clanging of cymbals.
At the suggestion of Hugo de Guisset,
whom Tuchman describes as well-known for his outrageous schemes and cruelty,
six young men, including Charles VI,
performed a dance in costumes as wood savages.
So is that the same thing as a wood spray?
It's a wild man, so pretty much.
Man of the woods.
Man of the woods, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The costumes, which were sewn onto the men,
were made of linen.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Sewn onto them?
Basically, they put the linen on them and then sewed them in.
To the skin?
No, not the skin, but...
Oh, I see what you're saying.
Put the...
Okay, sewed onto the little...
Right, instead of having a zipper, they were sewn on.
Okay.
The costume is a crucial...
I got one more thing.
One more thing before you go.
I'm sorry.
It's okay.
It's all right.
Take all the time you need because this will get bad.
Okay.
This will get very bad.
So during this revelry and tomfoolery.
Yes.
They took a mad king who a doctor specifically said, do not agitate or overstimulate him.
And they said, you know what?
Let's dress him up like a wild man of the woods.
overstimulate him and they said you know what let's dress him up like a wild man of the woods this poor bastard already thinks he's glass and he's he's berserkly killed four men yes but it
was at the suggestion of hugo de guise and oh that's well i mean that's the thing if who inspires
confidence like like hugo he was known for his outrageous schemes and cruelty. Okay, so a guy known for his outrageous schemes and cruelty says,
let's dress a mad king up.
Basically like a violent hillbilly.
Basically like Bob Dylan.
Yes.
In our story earlier.
And then, yeah.
And then hilarity ensues.
Hilarity ensues.
I just spilled water all over me.
All right.
The costumes, which were, yes, that is the logic here.
Okay.
Just to get it straight.
These were hard times, all right?
Okay.
You know, they were just trying to cheer the king up.
He wanted some frivolity and some festiveness.
And it sounds like he's getting ready to get it.
He's about to get it.
The costumes which were sewn onto the men
were made of linen soaked with resin
to which flax was attached
so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot.
Masks made of the same materials covered the dancers' faces
and hid their identities from the audience.
Some chronicles report that the dancers were bound together by chains.
Most of the audience were unaware that Charles was among the dancers.
Strict orders forbade the lighting of hall torches
and prohibited anyone from entering the hall with a torch during the performance
to minimize the risk of the highly flammable costumes catching fire.
According to historian Jean Winstra,
the men capered and howled like wolves,
spat obscenities, and invited the audience to guess their identities
while dancing a diabolical frenzy.
So they're having fun, they're dancing.
Charles' brother, Orléans, arrived with Philip de Barre late and drunk, and they entered
the hall carrying lit torches.
Accounts vary, but Orléans may have held his torch above a dancer's mask to determine
his identity when a spark fell, setting fire to the dancer's leg.
In the 17th century, William Prynne wrote of the incident
that the Duke d'Orlans
put one of the torches his servants held
so near the flax
that he set one of the coats on fire
and so each of them set fire onto the other
and so they were all in a bright flame.
This became a dance macabre.
Yes.
Isabeau, knowing that her husband
was one of the dancers,
fainted when the men caught fire Charles that's not
that's not a solid check
she's like
yeah
somebody get her a fainting couch
she's not a rider now Charles however
was standing at a distance from the other dancers
near his 15 year old aunt
Joan Duchess of Berry.
That's so weird.
Who swiftly threw her voluminous skirt over him to protect him from the sparks.
I want you to look at this photo.
This was a contemporary drawing, by the way.
This is the Charles being, and I'll put this as the episode art.
Look at the rings around that man's eyes.
Look at how absolutely disturbed he is
that's him hiding from the fires under his aunt's skirts isn't that an amazing photo an amazing image
i want to tell you something
i don't know if i've ever seen a man more disturbed than that
like him living i mean imagine you think you're made of glass you're hiding on your
aunt's skirt you're hiding on your aunt you're covered in woolly flax and you're watching your
friends that you were doing this jovial dance with five minutes before being engulfed in flames
sources disagree as to whether the duchess moved into the dance and drew the king aside to speak
to him or whether the king moved away toward the audience free so wrote that the king who proceeded ahead of the
dancers departed from his companions and went to the ladies to show himself to them and so passed
by the queen and came near the duchess of berry the soon the scene soon descended into chaos
the the dancers shrieked in pain as they burned in their costumes, and the audience, many of them also sustaining burns,
screamed as they tried to rescue the burning men.
The event was chronicled in uncharacteristic vividness
by the monk of Saint-Denis,
who wrote that four men were burned alive,
their flaming genitals dropping to the floor,
releasing a stream of blood.
That's probably a little unambitious. Yeah, I was going to say, That's probably a little
in the bush.
Yeah, I was gonna say,
it's probably a little thing.
Yeah, you take some liberties.
Did he really think
that your nuts just burn off
and then just blood just...
That's some French shit.
These people are so fucked.
They're so dramatic.
Yeah, it's like,
yeah, it's kind of...
They're like,
oh, no, no,
everybody will believe this.
Trust me,
nobody can fact check this
dude you can spew the biggest much like we have no idea what really transpired and like got us
to this point because you could just lie your ass off to like at least 2003
you are right it does seem to make intuitive sense that you would think that if you burn your genitals and nuts,
your nuts and your dick will burn off.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm just trying to picture, like, if a windmill caught on fire and one of the windmill arms fell to the ground.
Maybe that's what they're thinking.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Like, the whole thing.
He didn't see that firsthand, though. No.'s the thing about that here's the danger with that
is you tell a big loose one like that and all your writings just have an asterisk beside them
from now on it's like the boy the crowd wolf i think i think you're right that's why today
school children in america what's this guy's name the monk of sandini yeah all that's the
one of the first things they're taught in history of class that's true the monk of sandini told a
big one told a big one can't not a reliable narrator he claimed that when your nuts burn
off it releases a river of blood yeah and not just gases and not just gases now let me ask you
a question hugo did what's his name like we say
we say yeah was he just sitting on a high perch just saying just like i drew it up
no i think nero playing the fiddle well i don't think he intended for this to happen i would
imagine it was probably more uh akin to homer disappearing into the shrubs. Oh, like. He was probably like, oh, shit.
This really got out of control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Only two dancers survived.
The king, thanks to the quick reactions of the Duchess of Berry,
and the sire de Nantoulet,
who jumped into an open vat of wine and remained there until the flames were extinguished.
The Count of Jogny died at the scene.
Yvon de Foix, son of Gaston Febou,
Count of Foix,
and Emery of Poitiers
lingered with painful burns for two days.
The instigator of the affair, Hugo de Guisset,
survived a day longer.
Oh, shit, he fucking...
I guess he fucking also.
Damn, failed by his own blade.
Listen to this.
He survived a day longer, described by Tuchman as bitterly cursing and insulting his fellow dancers, the dead and the living, until his last hour.
My man, my brother in Christ, it was your idea.
It was your idea.
It was your idea.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was your idea.
The citizens of Paris, angered by the event and at the danger posed to their monarch,
blamed Charles' advisors.
A great commotion swept through the city
as the populace threatened to depose the king's uncles
and killed dissolute and depraved courtiers.
Greatly concerned at the popular outcry
and worried about a repeat of the
Mayotin Revolt.
I'm so sorry.
I'm going to go out on a limb here real quick
and say that the event didn't do much for Charles' constitution.
No.
I mean, in that artist's depiction, he looks like a mole person.
Like, he's just...
Perhaps that could be the costume, because I know he's kind of still in costume. He looks like a mole person like he's just perhaps that could be the costume because
i know he's kind of still in costume he looks like a wild man however however he doesn't look
great no he's not doesn't do good doesn't look good they uh his charles's uncles persuaded the
court to do penance at notre dame cathedral preceded by an apologetic royal progress through
the city in which the king rode on horseback with his uncles walking in humility.
So they
basically had to walk through.
This is what I'm talking about. This is the weird thing about
monarchs. Is this like when you were trying to find
your truck in Texas? This is what I was walking
in humility.
That's the thing. Kids don't
understand these days. You had to do
actual work to get around back then, brother.
Yeah.
I'm just becoming an old crank.
Yeah, that's all right.
You know?
You've earned it, pal.
I have earned it.
You're so right about that.
Friso's art chronicle of the event places direct blame on Orleon.
He wrote,
And thus the feast and marriage celebrations ended with such
great sorrow charles and isbo could do nothing to remedy it we must accept that it was no fault of
theirs but the duke de orlean orleone's reputation was severely damaged by the event compounded by an
episode he survived orleone did yeah not not hugo de guise that's who you're thinking no no no he's
the ringleader he was orlon who actually brought Orlon, who actually brought the kindling.
He brought the kindling in.
He brought the, yeah.
Yeah.
Like a bunch of, you know, drunken frat boys.
Like, oh, this is no fire?
Well, fuck it, man.
I don't care.
They're kind of stoned and drunk, you know?
Yeah.
Party's here!
They just bring you these lit torches.
That's the thing.
Like, you can picture it in your mind, because you know those types of guys yeah you know these types of guys have always
existed they've always existed yeah orleone's reputation was severely damaged by the event
compounded by an episode a few years earlier in which he was accused of sorcery after hiring an
apostate apostate monk to imbue a ring, dagger, and sword with demonic magic. Can you imagine going home at night and just being like,
these MFs really think I'm a sorcerer.
Like I'm being banished for sorcery.
Well, that's the thing.
I guess he already had that reputation.
It doesn't help your reputation.
If your reputation is that you're a sorcerer,
it doesn't help that you lit six men on fire.
That's true.
You're not beating the charge.
Not beating the sorcerer.
Not beating the sorcerer charges at that point.
The ball of the wild men added to the impression of a court steeped in extravagance with a king in delicate health and unable to rule.
This man was hanging on by a thread.
Truly.
His attacks of illness increased in frequency
such that by the end of the 1390s,
his role was merely ceremonial.
By the early 15th century,
he was neglected and often forgotten,
a lack of leadership that contributed to decline
and fragmentation of the Voila,
Voila,
Valois dynasty.
I never know how to say that.
It looks like Voila. Voila. Valois dynasty. I never know how to say that.
It looks like voila.
Voila.
In 1407,
Philip of Burgundy's son, John the Fearless,
had his cousin, Orleon, assassinated because of vice-corruption, sorcery,
and a long list of public and private
villainies. Vice-corruption and sorcery.
Vice-corruption, sorcery, and a long list
of public and private villainies.
There you go, dude. Vies, corruption, sorcery, and a long list of public and private villainies. There you go, dude.
At the same time, Isabel was accused of having been the mistress of her husband's brother.
Damn.
Damn.
That story has it all.
Intrigue.
Backstabbing.
Wow.
Wow.
Orlean's assassination pushed the country into a civil war between the Burgundians and the Orleanists,
known as the Armagnacs, which lasted for several decades.
You remember when that girl named Brittany came to town as an intern
when we lived in Weinsberg?
She was like, oh, yeah, I was named for the region in France where they...
It's like, yeah, sure you were.
Yeah, I'm sure that's what it was,
and not that you have one of the more common names
what's so funny about you mentioning that is that i barely remember that i remember but you do
remember i do remember that but i can't recall that person's face or anything about them in any
way yeah it's just a name am i made of glass oh man but if you if you do think you're made of glass if i thought i was made of glass i would
try to joke about it i'd be like today boys the glass is half full
the glass is half full day in the sun's out glasses have him and your voice will be like
stay on the sunny side big guy
we'll be in here if you need anything
I don't know why that got me so good
oh man king Saturday I don't know why that got me so good.
Oh, man.
King Saturday.
Glass Apple.
King Saturday.
Glass Apple.
Everyone's like, don't talk to him.
It's another Glass Apple Day. Don day don't what happened last time four gas
jesus christ oh dear god uh wow this really gets into the weeds on the wild men
wienstra writes in magic and divination of the courts of Burgundy of France,
that the ball of the wild men reveals the tension between Christian beliefs
and the latent paganism that existed in 14th century society.
According to him,
the event laid bare a great cultural struggle with the past,
but also became an ominous foreshadowing of the future.
Wild men are savages,
usually depicted carrying staves or clubs,
living beyond the bounds of civilization
without shelter or fire,
lacking feelings and souls,
were then a metaphor for man without God.
Well, today they still are.
Well, and today,
today,
they'll have a bitch laid up.
Crow Magnin Dick.
Today, Crow Magnin Dick is is widespread you know how many people used
to say that good dick is abundant didn't wasn't that a saying people would say like five years ago
or good i don't want to think about it you don't remember that wasn't that wasn't a good time
people didn't say that for me mentally well they should have said crow magnum dick is abundant
because it's not.
That's the joke.
The funny part is they're not around anymore.
That's the joke.
If you're an anthropologist or a paleontologist,
you can make that joke with your colleagues.
Cro-Magnon Dick is abundant.
And you all laugh.
And then you have an affair with your co-worker.
Your life disintegrates after that.
I've never seen anything good happen to a man
after he makes the Cro-Magnon dick
have a bitch laid up job.
All downhill from there.
All downhill from there.
That's from the Patreon, by the way.
People don't get that joke.
Oh, yeah.
You gotta go pay $ dollars to put that one in
context it's like the puzzle piece you're hovering over the puzzle where does crow magnan dick figure
in the rich trubelius tapestry tapestry if you've been thinking about subscribing but you but for
whatever reason you've you've hesitated now's the time please but also please just dm us and say i
had to know what was up with Cro-Magnon, Dick.
That's why I subscribed.
That's why I subscribed.
I just want to know if anybody out there is curious enough to pay us $5.
Yeah, I need to know if that's the specific reason.
I'm not making fun of you.
I'm just interested.
Like geologists or hydrologists, when they're trying to chase,
because around in eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia,
a lot of water goes underground
you'll have underground rivers and streams that's what the patreon's like that's what the patreon's
like and that's the thing it's like i need to to test where water enters a stream what what
hydrologists will often do is drop dyes into water yeah and they could trace it that's what i'm doing
here when i'm asking you to comment
if the Cro-Magnon dick
got you to the Patreon.
Yeah.
We're just...
We're hydrologists.
Right.
Yeah.
We're just testing
stream flows.
It might be wild, man.
Weak stream
and strong stream flows.
I thought...
I think it's interesting
that like
widowers
or widows or divorcees
who were getting a second or third remarriage,
the whole marriage ceremony was just mocking them relentlessly.
Like, ha-ha, your previous marriage has failed.
Would be awesome if they did that to the guys.
Because they'd just be ball busting.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hey, third time's the charm, Frank.
Are you going to have an open casket?
I mean, open bar.
Should I do this one?
You know, when guys are, you know, ribbed guys are getting ready to get married and say,
Hey, but y'all set a date for your funeral.
I mean, your wedding.
I like that.
I love that stuff.
And it'll never die.
We'll never die until we have that matriarchal pre-Hellenic Greek society we talked about.
That's exactly right.
Then it'll probably go away.
Then it probably will.
Then it won't be funny.
Then it won't be funny at all.
It'll just be sad
this is depressing yeah this i'm in like the appendix section of this story now because i'm
reading about the wild men god when you get into the appendices buddy you know we're going deep
truly um because remarriage was often thought to be a sacrilege common belief was that the
sacrament of marriage
extended beyond death.
It was censured by the community.
Thus, the purpose of the ball of wild men was twofold,
to entertain the court and to humiliate and rebuke
Isabeau's lady-in-waiting in an inherently pagan manner,
which the monk of Saint-Denis seemed to dislike.
That's why he made up the lie about the bloody...
The bloody cocks falling off.
The nuts falling off.
A ritual burning on the wedding night of a woman who was remarrying had Christian origins
as well.
Why, they burned the women?
What?
Well, it's not.
Or burned something.
It's not that.
It's, there was a burning.
Yeah.
And so you could think, and apparently people probably did, that Duke d'Orléans arranged
it
to, that's why he brought in
the fire.
He had a public burning.
You know what I'm saying? But I don't know. I'm not really
believing all this shit about the
Duke d'Orléans.
I think he got the shaft.
Let's rehabilitate
this. The Duke d'Orléans? This rogue. This rapscallion. He's got... Let's rehabilitate this... The Duke Daryl?
The rogue.
The rapscallion.
That's right.
That's real cut up.
The Book of Tobit...
Little rascal.
Oh, this is interesting.
This is an old book of the Bible.
I always love learning books of the Bibles that didn't make canon.
The Book of Tobit partly concerns a woman who had seven husbands murdered by the demon as
modius she is eventually freed of the demon by the burning of the heart and liver of a fish
is this apocryphal texts or like stuff that didn't make it off the cutting room floor didn't make it
off the cutting room floor the book of tobias is a third or early second century bc work oh wait
that's old testament old testament i say that like that like such a thing even existed back then.
Did the English rob us of some rich text?
They did, dude.
When they canonized.
King John.
King fucking John.
King James.
Or King James.
King fucking John.
King.
It might be time.
LeBron John.
LeBron John. It might be time to... LeBron John. LeBron John.
It might be time to call this one.
King fucking John.
After this shit show earlier.
Hey, hey.
Keep going, buddy.
Hey, you're doing fine.
The event may also have served as a symbolic exorcism of charles charles's mental illness
at a time when magicians and sorcerers were commonly consulted by members of the court
in the early 14th century ritual burning of evil demonic or satanic forces was not uncommon as
shown by orleans's later persecution of the king's physician i have to say real quick and just to interject um doesn't feel like to me that a burning of a entity that
lives in fire and brimstone is availing much uh-huh they should have froze them out you're
right dude you can't fight fire with fire you gotta that's a saying add ice or no that the
saying is actually you have to fight fire with fire. Oh, that is the saying.
You do have to fight fire with fire.
It doesn't make any sense.
Seems like that would just make more fire for everybody.
You'd think it would be like the opposite, like Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat.
Yeah.
Like, finish it.
The yin and yang, you know.
You bring fire, I'm throwing straight ice, baby.
I'm trying.
I'm cold as ice.
They didn't have ice back then, though, brother.
I guess that's true.
They had to import it from fucking the Arctic.
And then by the time I got to Italy, it was just water.
It was just water.
I'm like, what is this shit?
I ordered ice.
I paid for it.
I paid for ice.
And there was nothing you could do.
You can't send it back into the kitchen, because the kitchen is 1,300 miles to the north.
I want some Arctic Ocean water.
I have no use for this.
That's why you had to pickle everything.
To someone in the 14th century ordering ice
and it comes out of the...
And thinking that once it gets to you,
it's just going to be a huge come up.
You sit down at the restaurant like, hmm, I don't know.
Last time I got it, it gave me gas.
But you know what?
I'm going to do it.
Fuck it.
I want the ice soup.
I want the ice soup.
And they bring it out and it's just water.
And he's like, we're sorry, madam.
This is all we had in the back.
We're so sorry.
She's like, ah.
And like she gets on like the 14th century equivalent of Yelp.
Yeah.
And etches a, it's like in the town square, she etches a.
One star, they gave me water.
When I asked to speak to the manager.
It wasn't even cold.
It could have at least been cold water.
Yeah.
To indicate that it had once been ice.
Yeah. Jesus. been cold water to indicate that it had once been ice.
Jesus.
Okay.
Well, the death of four members of the nobility was sufficiently important to ensure that the event was recorded.
This is where it sent me down a whole rabbit hole on illuminated man scripts.
And that's why my background on my phone is an illuminated man
script but that's an that's a muslim one because the muslim illuminated man scripts are way in my
in my opinion the superior i think they're superior in some ways but then again i do like
the european ones too they're good wow the eliminated manuscripts are like when in high high school you would draw
the fucked up s the weird s you know in the yeah the classic notebook the classic notebook s yeah
or the anarchy symbol or the fucking edgy guys would do the nazi symbol but like that's basically
i did the wu-tang oh clan thing damn that unique. I was calling to the office over.
What?
They were concerned that I had certain symbols drawn on my notebook that were concerning.
I did have 3-6 Mafia on there, too, so that might have been.
That might have been it.
Well, before we go, I just want to show you the...
I didn't show you this
at the beginning,
but this is a contemporary,
this is a 15th century
depiction of this event.
Look at all the men
covered in flames.
This guy's trying
to take off his flames.
He's trying to remove
the flames.
Is that their,
white.
He's trying to,
that's their wild men's suits.
Did they drop their clubs?
They dropped their clubs,
yeah.
Why is there like a little, a little Scotty dog? There's a Shih Tzu running around. he's trying to that's their wild did they drop their clubs they dropped their clubs yeah why
is there like a little little scotty dog there's a shih tzu running around there's like a little
shih tzu i don't say but there's a little yappy dogs and people they had them even back then
brother here's what my question is why didn't certain party goers like exit the room they were
still playing look at the balcony There's players in the balcony
playing a jam.
And they're like,
my God, man,
can't you see we're ablaze?
They're like,
do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
Like the cantina band Star Wars.
Yes.
Like, where's Charles at
under his aunt's skirt?
Yeah, let's see.
Let's see if we can find the aunt.
Maybe that's him. That's bad. That's gotta be him. Let me see if we can find the aunt. Maybe that's him.
That's bad.
That's got to be him.
Let me see.
That's him right there.
You can see his head.
There's his aunt in her skirts
and she's shielding him
right there.
It's well known.
It's a well known story
that he hid in his aunt's skirts.
Buddy,
tell you something.
If you're going to dance
with the wild man,
you got to go down with them.
That's true.
Lest you be immortalized as a coward.
That is so true, dude.
You got to go down with the wild men.
What if he would have...
You know, he had a chance to alter the course of history a little bit there.
He could have said, no, no, auntie.
The captain goes down with his ship.
And his last moment of insanity.
Yeah, he just throws off
and jumps in there
and dances to his death
with his boys.
That would have been
taught you right.
Well, and he must not
have understood glass
because if he thought
he was made of glass,
surely he wouldn't have
been worried about
catching on fire.
He didn't have a thorough
grasp of how that works.
No, I guess not.
But maybe we'll get
a commenter saying, you guys don't have a thorough grasp of how that works, does he? No, I guess not. But maybe we'll get a commenter saying,
you guys don't have a thorough grasp of how it works
because glass at 375 degrees Celsius centigrade
starts entering into the molten stage.
To that I say, hey, buddy, grow up.
Grow up.
Grow up.
Grow up.
Get real.
That's how I'm going to start. When somebody leaves a negative comment, I'm just going to say, get real. Get real. That's how I'm going to start.
When somebody leaves a negative comment, I'm just going to say, get real.
Get real.
Why don't you just get real?
What did you say?
Talk to the hand.
I'm bringing that back.
Talk to the hand.
Because the face ain't listening.
Why did we phase that one out?
That was great.
You could use that for all kinds of stuff.
Could you be like Biden using that as a press conference?
Well, talk to the hand, Jack.
Because the face ain't listening.
What are some others we phased?
What were some ways just to...
As if.
As if, yeah.
I don't use as if anymore.
Yeah.
I've heard some as if coming back.
Ugh, as if.
I kind of like it.
It's kind of used in the context of like,
hey baby, why don't you come over later?
It's like, ugh, as if.
Or like when someone insinuates that you sucked his dick
and you're like, ugh, as if, in front of him and all of you sucked his dick and you're like,
as if in front of him and all his boys.
And then you're like,
Oh fuck.
Yeah.
Or if somebody is actually just repulsed by your visage,
they may say as if,
as if humiliating you in front of the entire class.
Oh boy,
man,
the monk of Sandin...
So many great characters in this story we just told.
The Duke d'Arlon.
The Duke d'Arlon.
The monk who lied about the testicles.
The flaming testicles.
Hugo Day.
I wanted to name a band Flaming Testicles when I was in middle school,
but me and my friends decided we probably couldn't get away with that.
So we went with the Screaming Turtleheads instead.
Much better.
Much better.
An improvement, yeah.
It's a little bit more subtle
because you don't know what a turtle,
you know what I mean, like at all.
I was in a band once in fourth grade
called Flannelhead.
None of us knew how to play our instruments.
That's a fucking dope-ass name, though, dude.
Pretty good.
Yeah.
That's like, what kind of,
it had to have been grunge or some shit.
I think that's the way we were leaning, if we would have stuck it out.
Well, that concludes our story of the ball of the wild men, the ball of the burning men.
Does that qualify as a dance macabre?
I'd say that's a dance macabre.
That's a dance macabre if I've ever seen one.
In every definition of the term, brother.
Yeah.
Me personally, I think the big villain here is the monk of Saint Denis who lied.
This fucking lying bastard.
Yeah, it was the deceit that was the most appalling part of it.
Yeah, that's the deceit.
It's the most disappointing thing.
I hate to be lied to by a fucking monk.
Yeah.
About holy man, no less.
The monk's chronicle is generally accepted as essential for understanding the king's court.
However, his neutrality may have been affected by his pro-Burgundian and anti-Orleana stance.
Yeah, I could have fucking told the world.
Yeah, duh.
I could have fucking told the world. Yeah, duh. I could just see,
the pro-Burgundian was seeping through the page.
I could just see it.
Yeah.
You just know one when you see one.
Hey, look, that's a fucking pro-Burgundian.
I see them.
That's a...
Anti-Orlyonist, that fucking...
I can smell it all over him.
Oh, man.
God, I want to him. Oh, man. God.
I want to tell you something, bro.
A French party where men dressed up in resin with flax on them,
and then they were set alive, burned alive, okay?
That is the ultimo definition of, I know it smell crazy in there.
That is, I know it smell crazy in there, personified.
It's just this weird blend of like cigarettes, whiskey, body odor, burnt flesh, burnt hair,
and just the most
noxious perfumes you could imagine.
Burnt flask, burnt resin.
And then what about that one bastard hiding out
in the fucking wine?
The wine.
Hiding his
pussy's head up.
Is it over?
I'm just being burned alive
screaming the most
agonizing screams. Their cock's falling
off. And he's like,
he's just kind of like Homer
in the bush. He just lowers himself.
Check again in a minute.
Oh my god.
I laughed so hard.
Just laugh so hard. Just, just flip her.
Oh dear.
I think that's a good place to end on.
I think it's,
it's as good as we're going to do.
It's as good as it's going to get.
If you'd like to hear part one of this story,
where we,
are we going to publish that episode?
Let's put it out for the Patriots.ots like look listen sometimes we just burn these episodes let's just show them what a reject
looks and sounds like let's do it we'll show you what one that doesn't get off the cutting room
floor we'll put it on the page yeah it was partially hot like again like i said it's partially
what what was its downfall was you not having headphones.
Yeah.
Because I was like talking.
I was boxed out.
We were on two different frequencies.
We were.
I was talking low like this.
I was talking low.
And I couldn't hear anything.
I was like, why is he not speaking?
Because I can hear it in my headphones, you know?
Yeah.
However, we'll put it out.
Yeah.
Because we're not fucking scared, motherfucker.
No.
But if you want to hear it, you're going to have to go to Patreon.
And if you want the Crud Magnum dick joke, you're going to have to go to Patreon.
P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Trailbilly.
You want a sea of other wonderful content.
That's exactly right.
See, this is the thing.
That's why I like recording in person because I get to talk low under my voice.
Because I'm trying to undo the first five years of this show where I hated my laugh,
hated my accent, hated my jokes.
Now I can undo it all.
You can just let your freak flag fly.
I can undo the past.
Release it.
Feel it. Feel it drifting in the wind. It can undo the past. Yeah. Release it. Feel it.
Feel it drifting in the wind.
It's all going away.
It is.
It's all going away.
That's right.
Now it's a ball.
Now it's a dance macabre.
Now it's a dance macabre.
Dear God.
All right.
Please go to Patreon.
I'll put the link in the show notes.
You know where to find us.
And thank you for listening this week.
If you do have any parties,
please do not get in tightly woven hairy man suits with flax and resin.
Especially if the boys show up with flaming torches.
That is not the good time you think it's going to be.
No.
Trust us.
Trust us.
All right.
Well, we'll see you next time.
Peace out.