Fw: [Sca-cooks] Crusades and cannibalism

[Ana Valdés]

Thanks a lot!! Actually my reflexion was why should we, "modern people" have
another sensibility than our parents and grandparents? I mean, why the passage
of cannibalism was expurged from modern editions but was included in the Pleyade
edition of Villehardouin? I know some of them of the people who actually ate
human flesh during a severe ordeal at the Andes, in Chile. Maybe some of you
remember the Hollywood movie based on their history, I think the title is
"Alive". The plane crashed and some of them died, others survived. The survivant
ate from the dead to keep themselves alive but it was a deep psychological wound
to explain to relatives and friends why they did it and what happened.
They were fellow landsman to me, Uruguayan, and they belonged to the country's
upperclass. Many of them were catholics and the church gave them absolution
because it was a kind of "comunion". It was a very traumatical thing for all
participating in it.
Ans

Phlip wrote:

> Ana, I forwarded the post on cannibalism to Paul Buell, to ask him if he was
> aware of anything in the literature, perhaps that in other languages, that
> might either refute or affirm the possibility of cannibalism, and here's his
> response. It's nice having access to a scholar who reads all those "weird"
> languages ;-)
>
> Phlip
>
>  If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
> cat.
>
> Never a horse that cain't be rode,
> And never a rider who cain't be throwed....
>
> > Interesting. This issue would be settled quite simply by going back to a
> > full, original edition (in Old French) of Villehardouin with a complete
> > apparatus and looking at the passage in question. If Villehardouin
> actually
> > said that this happened, it probably did since he was an eye-witness. The
> > army in question was in a very difficult position. I know of no other
> > references to cannibalism but, from the same period, the Tatar Relation
> says
> > something about Cinggis-qan and his army drawing lots to eat their own
> > members during a difficult siege. Simon de Saint Quentin says that the
> > "Tatars" ate human meat too. So this was something you accused an enemy
> of.
> > Villehardouin, however, is another thing entirely. He was in a position to
> > know. But the passage may have been dropped because there are problems
> with
> > it.
> >
> > Paul
>
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