JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX HEADCHOPPING DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN 355 BCE Xenophon, Greek general and historian, died. He had, like Plato, been a disciple of Socrates. He had accompanied Cyrus the Younger against Artaxerxes II and, after Cyrus’s death at Cunaxa in 401 BCE, had led his army of 10,000 Greek soldiers to the Black Sea, an expedition recorded in his ANABASIS. His other works include HELLENICA, a history of Greece, and the MEMORABILIA, APOLOGY, and SYMPOSIUM, which contain his recollections of Socrates. At some point during his life, Xenophon had objected to the use of torture deaths for the nobility, singling out decapitation as the most appropriate fate for errant Greek nobles (Romans also would reserve capitis amputatio for nobler folk). HEADCHOPPING FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E. Headchopping “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN HEADCHOPPING 193 CE The Roman legions auctioned off the post of Emperor to the highest bidder. Marcus Didius Salvius Julianus bid highest. After a couple of months he was beheaded, and the result would be that from 193 to 235 CE would go down in history as the Severan Dynasty (Septimus Severus, Caracalla, Severus Alexander). HEADCHOPPING The Libyan, Septimus Severus, was proclaimed Emperor. It would take a little time for Septimus Severus to put down all the other would-be Emperors, in the provinces HDT WHAT? INDEX HEADCHOPPING DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN (until 194 CE, when at Byzantium and then at Nicaea and then at Issus the legions of Septimus Severus defeated the legions of Roman Emperor wannabee Gaius Pescennius Niger; until 197 CE, with the putting down of Roman Emperor wannabee Decimus Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum) but he would restore the Pax Romana with particular severity (which is to say, with determination combined with ferocity). He would secure his reign until his natural death in 211 CE. The virtues of nobility reputed to Trajan, of culture to Hadrian, of piety to Antoninus Pius, and of philosophy to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus were all lacking in Septimus Severus. There was one thing this guy knew, because he had studied very hard at it, and that was how to keep himself in power — anything else was incidental. This nasty customer would be one of the two Roman Emperors (the other would be Constantius Chlorus) to die at the town of York in Britain (the town was then known as Eboracum). Mr. Severity doesn’t seem to have considered anything other than hereditary succession despite his having a particularly nasty family jewel, Caracalla, as the family-jewels candidate. His attempt to balance Caracalla HDT WHAT? INDEX DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN HEADCHOPPING with his brother Geta would simply get Geta murderized. Another factor, however, would be the loyalty inspired in the troops to the family, and Caracalla himself would maintain that popularity reasonably well until his inevitable murder. This would set off another brief free-for-all, until loyalty to the Severan family would prevail. The “family,” however, would turn out to be the entirely matrilineal creation of Severus’s sister-in- law, Julia Maesa, who would bring her two grandsons, entirely unrelated to Severus, to the throne. The bizarre Elagabalus (sometimes “Heliogabalus”), styling himself the god of his grandmother’s Syrian solar cult, and then the amiable and reasonably effective Alexander, thus would wrap up the dynasty. Alexander would be offed after the overdue reality check of battle against the newly aggressive Persians. He actually would not be that bad, but evidently would not be great enough for his own troops, who would off not only him but also his mother. CONTINGENCY ALTHOUGH VERY MANY OUTCOMES ARE OVERDETERMINED, WE TRUST THAT SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY MAKE REAL CHOICES. Headchopping “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HEADCHOPPING DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN 1280 There are indications that as early as this year the “Halifax Gibbet,” a head-chopping machine, was put to use in Halifax, England, at executions on market-days. The last beheading with this Halifax gibbet device would take place in 1648. HEADCHOPPING THE AGE OF REASON WAS A PIPE DREAM, OR AT BEST A PROJECT. ACTUALLY, HUMANS HAVE ALMOST NO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING, WHILE CREDITING THEIR OWN LIES ABOUT WHY THEY ARE DOING IT. Headchopping “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN HEADCHOPPING 1305 In 1297 a Scot of Welsh descent, Sir William Wallace, had rebelled against English rule in Scotland. After defeating an English army at Stirling Bridge his army was in 1298 defeated at Falkirk. For 7 years Sir William had waged a guerrilla campaign, only to be betrayed in 1305 by Sir John Mentieth and “carried from Westminster to the Tower, and from the Tower to Aldgate, and so through the city to the Elms at Smithfield ... and as an outlaw beheaded.” Committed to the Tower of London on August 22d, he was executed at Tyburn on August 24th. (Actually, rather than being merely beheaded after being brought to a field by St. Bartholomew Hospital, he was first hung until he was almost –not quite– dead. Then, taken down from his noose and tied down, his genitals were lopped off. Then he was disemboweled and his innards were burned before his face, and only then –still apparently alive– was he beheaded.) The body was chopped into quarters to be put on display in cities marking the “four corners” of England (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Berwick, Stirling, and Perth), while the severed head, that having been the customary cure for treason, was impaled on a stake at London Bridge. HEADCHOPPING Their leader having been inventively chopped into pieces, there was of course a new ordinance for the government of a pacified Scotland. –But, would the Scots become happy campers? Nooo, not exactly. ONE COULD BE ELSEWHERE, AS ELSEWHERE DOES EXIST. ONE CANNOT BE ELSEWHEN SINCE ELSEWHEN DOES NOT. (TO THE WILLING MANY THINGS CAN BE EXPLAINED, THAT FOR THE UNWILLING WILL REMAIN FOREVER MYSTERIOUS.) Headchopping “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX HEADCHOPPING DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN 1306 Sir Christopher Seton, captured at St John’s Town, was taken to the Tower of London, hanged, cut down, and beheaded. LONDON WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF September 7, Wednesday (Old Style): Sir Herbert Morham and Thomas Le Boys, who had been guilty of supporting the Scots cause, were beheaded “at the Tower.” Sir Simon Fraser had been captured at St John’s Town and taken to the Tower of London. He was hanged, drawn, beheaded, quartered, and on this day his head went on display on a pike on London Bridge (alongside the year-old trophy taken from the shoulders of Sir William Wallace). BEHEADINGS Headchopping “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN HEADCHOPPING 1307 April 1, Saturday (Old Style): Head-chopping machines seems to have been utilized in Germany, the British Isles, and Italy prior to the 14th Century, long before they left much of a record. The first presently known evidence of the existence of such a device is the apparatus known to have been employed for the beheading of Murcod Ballagh, near the town of Merton. This depiction of the ceremony is in the British Museum: (Anybody in his right mind would say that this looks about as close to a guillotine as one would desire to get in Ireland in April on a chilly day — and yet the Dr. Guillotin whose family name now adorns this device would not be born for more than four centuries, and his name would not be suggested for what was known as “the machine” and as “la louisette” and as “le louison” until after the turn of the 19th Century.) HEADCHOPPING YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS, HDT WHAT? INDEX HEADCHOPPING DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION. Headchopping “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DR. JOSEPH-IGNACE GUILLOTIN HEADCHOPPING 1381 June 14, Friday (Old Style): After city people had lowered the drawbridge protecting London Bridge, the revolutionary forces under Wat Tyler captured it and the Tower of London. Books and documents that came into their hands at the Temple and in Lambeth Palace were burned. Wine cellars were broken into at Savoy and other manors. Chancellor Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury1, and the King’s Confessor, William Appleton, had sought refuge at the Tower of London during the Peasants’ Revolt. On this day the rebels of Kent dragged them, along with Sir Robert Hales and King’s Sergeant John Legg, out and subjected them to a mock trial before beheading, after which the headless corpses were hacked to pieces by the mob (you can still inspect his head, at St Gregory’s church in Sudbury in Suffolk).