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CLASSIC: Butter: Protestantism's Secret Ingredient? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. This is a
0:04
Speaker 1: classic episode because we took some time off for Labor Day.
0:09
Speaker 1: We did do that thing. Uh, that time off has passed.
0:13
Speaker 1: But it was awesome for me. I hope it was
0:15
Speaker 1: awesome for YouTube Ben who boys, awesome for everybody listening
0:18
Speaker 1: along at home. Today's episode is it's an oldie, it's
0:25
Speaker 1: a goodie, it's a weird one. It's about butter. Yeah,
0:29
Speaker 1: and a lot of you likely have not heard it
0:31
Speaker 1: because I believe the old Apple podcast platform cuts off
0:36
Speaker 1: older episodes. I think older than like three hundred of
0:39
Speaker 1: the most recent, so we have surpassed that sometime ago.
0:43
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're having our own indulgence today by taking
0:46
Speaker 1: a little holiday and giving you this classic episode. Ridiculous
0:51
Speaker 1: History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome to
1:18
Speaker 1: the show, Ladies and gentlemen. They call me Ben. I
1:21
Speaker 1: can't believe it's not Bowland, and my name is Noel
1:24
Speaker 1: the butter lover Brown. Now that's good. I don't don't
1:28
Speaker 1: ever call me that. I will not call you that.
1:33
Speaker 1: If we're outside of the balance of this episode. Is
1:35
Speaker 1: that fair? I guess so. Also, as it turns out,
1:38
Speaker 1: our wonderful producer Alex pointed out right before we started rolling,
1:41
Speaker 1: the butter lover was considered an insult in medieval Roman Catholicism. Yeah,
1:49
Speaker 1: Roman times to call someone butter lover? Was it was
1:54
Speaker 1: fighting words, wasn't it. Because we got the nod from Alex. There,
1:59
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous history, and today we are looking at
2:04
Speaker 1: a very ridiculous but I would argue, very important part
2:09
Speaker 1: of butter history. Yeah, and also part of the history
2:13
Speaker 1: of religion as we know it. And it's ridiculous, I
2:18
Speaker 1: guess because a big part of the Protestant Reformation, as
2:23
Speaker 1: uh it turns out, was hinged on the prohibition of
2:29
Speaker 1: that delicious, creamy substance we know and love, many of
2:34
Speaker 1: us I do. How do you feel about butter? Butter? Yes,
2:37
Speaker 1: I love it. I've had um. I've had many loves,
2:41
Speaker 1: hard one and often lost in my life. Noel, and
2:44
Speaker 1: butter is Butter is the one that's going to stick around.
2:47
Speaker 1: I think you're messing with me. I am not messive
2:50
Speaker 1: with you. I am not messing with you. The It's true.
2:53
Speaker 1: Everything that the illustrious Mr Brown said is true. And
2:57
Speaker 1: this is somewhat timely for us because this year, the
3:02
Speaker 1: year in which we're recording this ten marks the five
3:07
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. And I mean, that's such
3:11
Speaker 1: a staple of of high school history classes. But just
3:15
Speaker 1: in case, well, what was the Protestant Reformation? Ben, I'm so,
3:19
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked. So. It was a schism
3:23
Speaker 1: from the Roman Catholic Church, and it was originally instituted
3:28
Speaker 1: by a fellow named Martin Luther. To the guy that
3:32
Speaker 1: nailed the thing to the door. Yep, he's the guy
3:35
Speaker 1: who famously nailed feces onto the door in fifteen seventeen.
3:43
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is he had theses and Butter
3:47
Speaker 1: was one, yes, Yes, we are Uh. And I believe
3:51
Speaker 1: I believe that jay Z just I'm just gonna guess
3:55
Speaker 1: that jay Z probably based his song off theces. I
4:00
Speaker 1: was thinking that might be the case. It has a feel,
4:02
Speaker 1: has that feel to it. Uh. The problem that Martin
4:06
Speaker 1: Luther had to keep it in a in a short format, right.
4:09
Speaker 1: The problem that Martin Luther had was that the way
4:15
Speaker 1: that Catholic Church was functioning seen in his opinion in
4:19
Speaker 1: many ways as corrupt and as oppressive, and he had
4:26
Speaker 1: his own theology that conflicted with this right, I mean
4:31
Speaker 1: corrupt in the most like Mafioss sense of the word corrupt. Essentially,
4:37
Speaker 1: the Church charged people um what they called indulgences in
4:43
Speaker 1: order to go against Catholic doctrine or things that were
4:47
Speaker 1: prohibited food items for example, or activities that were prohibited.
4:53
Speaker 1: You could essentially pay for absolution. And this was clearly
5:00
Speaker 1: a huge beef with Martin Luther. Because I have these
5:04
Speaker 1: is pulled up in Internet form and I typed in
5:07
Speaker 1: a search for the word indulge. I didn't even make
5:10
Speaker 1: it all the way to indulgence, and it appears forty
5:12
Speaker 1: five times um in the document. And there were there
5:16
Speaker 1: were serious, fundamentally contradictory theological opinions that Martin Luther had
5:24
Speaker 1: or maybe beliefs is a better word here. Uh, the
5:28
Speaker 1: indulgence is yes, clearly a corrupt practice. Right. He also
5:34
Speaker 1: challenged the authority of the pope, and he believed that
5:41
Speaker 1: the Bible didn't have to stay in the Latin language.
5:45
Speaker 1: He when he translated the Bible to German, he honestly
5:49
Speaker 1: set that culture on a path toward a standard written
5:53
Speaker 1: version of the German language. Well, totally mean like a
5:56
Speaker 1: big part of it too. Beyond this weird practice of
5:59
Speaker 1: selling an algiences was making it more accessible to people
6:03
Speaker 1: and not having to have everything go through some sort
6:07
Speaker 1: of high church official or you know, like the idea
6:11
Speaker 1: that you could speak directly to God rather than have
6:15
Speaker 1: to have a go between some kind of like medium
6:19
Speaker 1: almost in a way, in the form of a priest.
6:21
Speaker 1: You know. And and Butter is not just a tiny huh,
6:28
Speaker 1: well look at that kind of detail in this story.
6:32
Speaker 1: In fact, if not for this band on Butter, there
6:34
Speaker 1: might have been a much slower growth rate of the
6:37
Speaker 1: Protestant movement. So if we look at this first, I
6:41
Speaker 1: guess the best way for us to start is to
6:45
Speaker 1: consider fast days. Should we travel back in time to
6:49
Speaker 1: medieval Europe? I think that's a wonderful idea. So here
6:56
Speaker 1: we are medieval Europe. Dude, it's kind of here. It's
7:00
Speaker 1: really dark and gloomy, and everyone looks really bummed out. Yes, yes, yes,
7:06
Speaker 1: you'll you'll also notice that there are a lot of
7:11
Speaker 1: people who look hungry. Watch out for that poop. Oh
7:14
Speaker 1: you slipped, That's fine, it's my poop. I was here earlier, gross,
7:19
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I was just really feeling the
7:22
Speaker 1: moment that skinny guy in the stocks over there, he
7:25
Speaker 1: looks pretty malnourished. That's also plague, So I don't touch him.
7:28
Speaker 1: I think I've driven this bit into the ground. Well,
7:31
Speaker 1: luckily we're riding it out still, because now that we're
7:36
Speaker 1: in this environment, we can note that there are some
7:40
Speaker 1: obvious traditions that are different from our own in the
7:42
Speaker 1: modern day. Right, Let's see look at that. See that
7:46
Speaker 1: monk man sure does have a shiny head. Yes, yes,
7:49
Speaker 1: he has a ton shore. Ah my eyes, So what
7:55
Speaker 1: a ton shore? That's a tantra is the word for
7:58
Speaker 1: that type of haircut where they shave the top of
8:01
Speaker 1: their head. I thought it was it called a bowl cut.
8:04
Speaker 1: It's it's like the opposite of a bowl cut. It's
8:06
Speaker 1: like the fringe around a bowl cut, minus the part. Okay,
8:10
Speaker 1: you learned something new every day. These monks that we're
8:14
Speaker 1: hypothetically looking at are living in a system of fairly
8:19
Speaker 1: rigid and exacting rules dictating both their um, their religious practices,
8:26
Speaker 1: and their day to day behavior. And one of the
8:28
Speaker 1: big things about this we're drawing a lot of this
8:31
Speaker 1: from a book called Butter, A Rich History by Elaine
8:35
Speaker 1: Coast Sulva uh one of the big things about this
8:39
Speaker 1: was the the sort of food you could eat. And
8:41
Speaker 1: if it were Wednesday, if it were a Friday or
8:44
Speaker 1: a Saturday, then these monks the way this tradition started
8:49
Speaker 1: could not eat any animal products. They were vegan three
8:52
Speaker 1: days out of the week. They were really ahead of
8:54
Speaker 1: the curve on that one, no kidding. And then in
8:58
Speaker 1: lent the Ford day period leading up to Easter, they
9:01
Speaker 1: also couldn't eat animal products, so they were vegan functionally
9:05
Speaker 1: for like forty days or their version of that. Yeah,
9:07
Speaker 1: and what's wild and didn't ocur to me until looking
9:09
Speaker 1: into this stuff is it was accounted for something in
9:12
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of like half of the calendar year when
9:15
Speaker 1: you added it all up together. And that's if you
9:18
Speaker 1: don't well we'll get to indulgences and how they play
9:23
Speaker 1: in here. But yeah, you're absolutely right. That really adds
9:26
Speaker 1: up and that makes me appreciate every fully. Cheese steak
9:30
Speaker 1: I have ever eaten or will ever eat Do you
9:32
Speaker 1: do that? The cheese whiz version? You know, you know,
9:35
Speaker 1: I'm not loyal enough. That's the classic they say. Yeah,
9:38
Speaker 1: but I like the provolone, you know, like a good provolonge.
9:40
Speaker 1: You ever eating cheese whiz out of the can. Yeah. Man, Yeah,
9:43
Speaker 1: we've all had dark times in our lives. I mean,
9:46
Speaker 1: I'll do whip cream out of the can, but cheese whiz,
9:48
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not it's not a food. It's not
9:50
Speaker 1: a food. It's essentially like the powder that comes in
9:53
Speaker 1: the Kraft Macaroni and cheese boxes, just like an aerosol form.
9:57
Speaker 1: Don't they have to call the cheese food product? I
10:00
Speaker 1: think so American cheese slices. But the thing that's cool
10:03
Speaker 1: too about this is, um, a lot of this stuff
10:07
Speaker 1: really hinged on region. We take for granted the idea
10:10
Speaker 1: of importing and exporting and are the availability of like anything,
10:13
Speaker 1: and like we don't really have to limit our food
10:15
Speaker 1: intake based on where we live. If we want strawberries,
10:19
Speaker 1: we can get strawberries. If we want some you know,
10:21
Speaker 1: tropical fruit that's not grown anywhere near us, we can
10:24
Speaker 1: get it because of like you know, refrigeration. But back
10:27
Speaker 1: in these days that was not a thing, and your
10:30
Speaker 1: diet was dictated pretty much exclusively on what was available
10:35
Speaker 1: in your region unless you were super wealthy, and even
10:39
Speaker 1: and even then it would be incredibly rare, you know,
10:42
Speaker 1: or be incredibly expensive, for instance, to get certain spices
10:46
Speaker 1: like peppercorns. So now we've got we've got our monks
10:51
Speaker 1: who about half the year just can't eat meat or
10:56
Speaker 1: dairy and is also coincidentally believed to you will lust
11:01
Speaker 1: any animal product is thought as like essentially an afrodisiactive sorts.
11:06
Speaker 1: This tradition became becomes intensely problematic when the Catholic Church
11:13
Speaker 1: extends these Fast Day rules to all Christians. So for
11:18
Speaker 1: not just monks, anybody who is a Christian has to
11:23
Speaker 1: skip meat, milk, eggs, animal fats, or butter on Wednesday's, Friday's, Saturdays,
11:29
Speaker 1: and all during Lent. And this is where we really
11:32
Speaker 1: see the problem of geography that we mentioned coming into play,
11:37
Speaker 1: because the Roman Catholic Church isn't is it in southern Europe? Right,
11:41
Speaker 1: It's based in Rome. It's in charge ideologically of a
11:46
Speaker 1: lot of Europe, but it's based in Rome, and they
11:49
Speaker 1: had access to like fish, a lot more fish, you know,
11:54
Speaker 1: fresh fish, and also things like olive oil that were
11:57
Speaker 1: alternatives to butter, because butter, you know, as as we know,
12:01
Speaker 1: is delicious to just spread directly on things, but it's
12:04
Speaker 1: also a really great way to cook things, and it
12:07
Speaker 1: infuses pretty excellent flavor into things that you cook with it.
12:12
Speaker 1: Olive oil is also fantastic, I would argue, it doesn't
12:15
Speaker 1: quite add the same you know, some kind of same
12:18
Speaker 1: kind of mommy, same kind of kick as butter does.
12:21
Speaker 1: So that played into this as well. Southern Europeans were
12:33
Speaker 1: not only not only was olive oil sort of functioning
12:38
Speaker 1: the way that butter functioned in different areas of Europe,
12:42
Speaker 1: but olive oil was considered superior and Southern some Southern
12:48
Speaker 1: Europeans actually a prejudices against butter, really really strange stuff.
12:54
Speaker 1: There was this belief that, you know, butter was a
12:57
Speaker 1: disease vector, that the reason people got leprosy was because
13:02
Speaker 1: of their buttered consumption. And so when Southern Europeans were
13:06
Speaker 1: traveling abroad, some would even bring their own supply of oil,
13:11
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't want to come back to
13:13
Speaker 1: Rome with leprosy, So pack of the pack of mule
13:18
Speaker 1: full of olive oil, or put bags on the mule.
13:22
Speaker 1: Don't put the oil in the mule, I mean unless
13:25
Speaker 1: it's you know, starting to rust. Yes, sure, I mechanical mules.
13:32
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm talking about. All of this,
13:35
Speaker 1: but don't leave it in. It's fine. We're just having
13:37
Speaker 1: a conversation here. So Southern Europeans all about olive oil,
13:42
Speaker 1: olive oil, maybe fish oil. These are the superior flavor ingredients, right,
13:48
Speaker 1: These are the superior um products in comparison to butter.
13:54
Speaker 1: But in parts of Europe where there were dairy farming
13:59
Speaker 1: countries like France or where Martin Luther lived Germany, cutting
14:03
Speaker 1: butter from the diet was a huge deal and it
14:06
Speaker 1: was dangerous. That was tantamount to some form of forced
14:11
Speaker 1: starvation essentially m because think about it, if they can't
14:17
Speaker 1: consume any meat or then also cheese, right, cheese would
14:21
Speaker 1: be out. Then they couldn't rely on butter. Things were
14:26
Speaker 1: getting really really skimpy in the pantry and the larder.
14:31
Speaker 1: And this rule was applied in a very corrupt way.
14:36
Speaker 1: This is where indulgences come in. And did you ever
14:39
Speaker 1: read about these when you were a kid in school? Man,
14:42
Speaker 1: this sounds like the most crooked, disturbing practice. Well, it's
14:46
Speaker 1: like the it's it's it's you know, a religious equivalent
14:49
Speaker 1: of like Polly Walnuts from the Sopranos knocking on your
14:52
Speaker 1: door and you know, expecting his collections for protection, you know,
14:57
Speaker 1: but this is like spiritual protection space. PA. Say, you know,
15:00
Speaker 1: you you grease my palm a little bit, and I'll
15:03
Speaker 1: give you a pass. In other words, I won't break
15:06
Speaker 1: your legs or you know, put you in the stocks
15:09
Speaker 1: when we find out that you've broken fast by eating
15:12
Speaker 1: you know, something that was prohibited like butter. Yeah, it's
15:15
Speaker 1: it's crazy. So if you are well connected Catholic royalty,
15:20
Speaker 1: or if you're a wealthy merchant, for instance, and you're
15:23
Speaker 1: saying the common people maybe all well and good three
15:28
Speaker 1: days out of the week without button, but I am
15:31
Speaker 1: of different stock. Have they talked? Every single one? They
15:36
Speaker 1: all sounded like Winston Churchill, including the children. That's terrifying.
15:41
Speaker 1: I forgot. We're there actually right now. Still we we
15:44
Speaker 1: haven't come back from our time traveling. Yeahs, figure out
15:50
Speaker 1: what day of the week it is, so we don't
15:52
Speaker 1: get in trouble. Because you know, this is a spiritual institution.
15:56
Speaker 1: We are talking about a religious rule, and this means
16:01
Speaker 1: that in addition to physical penalties that might exist, you know,
16:07
Speaker 1: if their physical penalties for breaking a religious rule, the
16:09
Speaker 1: ultimate threat is that you couldn't you are spiritually committing
16:16
Speaker 1: a transgression against the will of God. And the thing
16:20
Speaker 1: too is in these regions where they didn't have ready
16:23
Speaker 1: access to the alternatives to butter, there were merchants that
16:27
Speaker 1: would capitalize on that and would provide or import I guess,
16:31
Speaker 1: really really really poor quality oils. And there's actually a
16:35
Speaker 1: quote from a book by the name of Fast and
16:39
Speaker 1: Feast from a um priest from fifteen twenty that goes
16:44
Speaker 1: as as such, in Rome, they make a mockery of
16:47
Speaker 1: fasting while forcing us to eat an oil they themselves
16:52
Speaker 1: would not use to grease their shoes. Then they sell
16:56
Speaker 1: us the right to eat the foods forbidden on fast days,
16:59
Speaker 1: but they have stolen that same liberty from us with
17:02
Speaker 1: their ecclesiastical laws. Eating butter, they say, is a greater
17:06
Speaker 1: sin than to lie, blaspheme, or indulge in impurity, which
17:13
Speaker 1: is just insane when you think about it, you know
17:17
Speaker 1: that that list of priorities could be so messed up.
17:21
Speaker 1: And it's it's not just a matter of controlling a population, right,
17:28
Speaker 1: it's a matter of economic import for the for the
17:34
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, because they're taking this money that people are
17:39
Speaker 1: paying for dispensations, right. Uh. And they had different rates,
17:44
Speaker 1: and they had sometimes they had groups paying like a
17:47
Speaker 1: community paying for a dispensation. They're using the cash, these
17:50
Speaker 1: folks are paying them too construct bigger buildings, you know, uh,
17:56
Speaker 1: and to fund crusades. And there are even there, there
18:02
Speaker 1: are even things that the local population still recognizes about
18:08
Speaker 1: this practice. Right. There was a special collection box in
18:12
Speaker 1: French parishes to collect what was called butter money. Right,
18:16
Speaker 1: so these entire communities where it's told you can eat butter. Dude,
18:19
Speaker 1: that sounds like a mafia term when you get that
18:22
Speaker 1: butter money, a a little bit of butter money, you know,
18:26
Speaker 1: forget about it. That's not my best It's okay. Now
18:30
Speaker 1: everybody's looking around at that terrible accident, and we apologize
18:33
Speaker 1: to any Italian Americans out there that Ben is deeply offended. No,
18:37
Speaker 1: that was not Italian American. It was just it was
18:41
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, like a like a you know, forget
18:44
Speaker 1: about it, Brooklyn, Jersey. That's fair, that's fair. Oh boy, Well,
18:52
Speaker 1: who knew that butter can be so controversial? Right? Who knew?
18:56
Speaker 1: Who knew? We we knew, we we we read, we
18:58
Speaker 1: read up on this, but we knew earlier Dad's tory
19:00
Speaker 1: going so in this case, it's not somebody saying, Okay,
19:06
Speaker 1: I know that butter is banned on Wednesdays, but we're
19:11
Speaker 1: having a big wedding at my castle, and I'd like
19:13
Speaker 1: to serve butter to you know, the people attending the wedding.
19:18
Speaker 1: This case, there are these entire regions who just continue
19:22
Speaker 1: to pay an extra tax for the right to conveniently
19:27
Speaker 1: ignore a rule. Yeah, or even like like you said,
19:31
Speaker 1: royalty or you know, very privileged members of society could
19:36
Speaker 1: pay the tax for like their entire household. Yeah, yeah,
19:40
Speaker 1: they could. They could do it as a you know,
19:42
Speaker 1: like a group rate. I wonder if they got a
19:44
Speaker 1: price break, you know, I wonder if if members of
19:47
Speaker 1: the church would say, well, for you by yourself, it's
19:51
Speaker 1: x amount of stuff, but you get a couple of
19:54
Speaker 1: did a couple of units off for every family member
19:56
Speaker 1: you add? They probably didn't do price breaks, sort of
19:59
Speaker 1: like buying group passes to like Disneyland or something like
20:02
Speaker 1: like a cell phone plan. This is almost like a
20:04
Speaker 1: cell phone plan because you have to keep paying a
20:07
Speaker 1: cable bundle or a cable bundle. Basically, the Roman Catholic
20:10
Speaker 1: Church was like the comcast of the medieval Karen in this.
20:14
Speaker 1: You know what, that is accurate to a frightening degree
20:18
Speaker 1: in in this case, officially and locals even today would
20:23
Speaker 1: call certain buildings like butter towers. You know that the
20:28
Speaker 1: money was used to build these gigantic religious uh well,
20:32
Speaker 1: to add expansions on or to build these gigantic religious structures.
20:38
Speaker 1: This struck Martin Luther, along with all the other problems
20:44
Speaker 1: you had. This struck him as tremendously insulting, because you know, Noel,
20:49
Speaker 1: we're walking around in the past. Our clothes look probably
20:52
Speaker 1: really cool, I would hope, although our hat game is
20:56
Speaker 1: nowhere near as evolved as the Middle Ages hat game.
21:01
Speaker 1: But we we don't have any money in this area
21:06
Speaker 1: of time. So if we're in this community, if we
21:10
Speaker 1: like sat down and lived here and we didn't have
21:13
Speaker 1: money to pay for that dispensation, then we're getting swindled
21:17
Speaker 1: by people selling garbage oil, right that might not even
21:22
Speaker 1: be edible. There's no way around this butter band for us.
21:26
Speaker 1: So what what do we what are we supposed to do?
21:30
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, and just just to backtrack just slightly,
21:34
Speaker 1: I found an example of one of these kind of
21:37
Speaker 1: blanket dispensations in and this is from the the butter
21:42
Speaker 1: book of rich history. Queen Anne, who was the Duchess
21:45
Speaker 1: of Brittany, um got Rome to give her a dispensation
21:51
Speaker 1: for not only herself but the entire household, including all
21:54
Speaker 1: her servants and family members. And Brittany did not produce
22:00
Speaker 1: any cooking oil at all. It was a it was
22:03
Speaker 1: a butter based economy, I guess for lack of a
22:06
Speaker 1: better time. But um, it's interesting because the this dispensation
22:11
Speaker 1: was ultimately extended to all of Brittany, and this kind
22:17
Speaker 1: of started, um, the the undoing of some of this gradually. Um.
22:25
Speaker 1: But it didn't come for free, because they had to
22:29
Speaker 1: still give to the church, and there were even special
22:32
Speaker 1: prayers that they had to do. Yes, I contrite confession.
22:37
Speaker 1: It's not it's technically it's not enough to just give
22:41
Speaker 1: them the money and say let me let me snarf
22:45
Speaker 1: my butter in peace. Technically they have to make a
22:49
Speaker 1: contrite confession where they are legitimately apologizing, confessing to receive
22:57
Speaker 1: the absolution from sin. And that's where those butter boxes
23:00
Speaker 1: came from. That we were talking about in churches where
23:02
Speaker 1: you would pay this spiritual tax in some of these
23:06
Speaker 1: French parishes, and they actually paid for the construction of
23:11
Speaker 1: like these ornate cathedrals, and one of them, in um
23:16
Speaker 1: Ruin and borges Um, was dubbed the Tower, the butter Tower,
23:21
Speaker 1: or the tour Debuer. Yeah, so we can see, we
23:28
Speaker 1: can see how this becomes a an active segment of
23:34
Speaker 1: the regional economies. Right, and this whether or not, I mean,
23:41
Speaker 1: obviously we see we look back and we see the
23:45
Speaker 1: process of granting indulgences as corrupt. Right, But if it
23:52
Speaker 1: is the practice of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic
23:56
Speaker 1: Church is making the rules, then they're the ones who
23:58
Speaker 1: decide if something is corrupt. It would logically follow. However, Luther,
24:05
Speaker 1: in an open letter to the Christian nobility of the
24:09
Speaker 1: German nation, said that this was an enormous problem, that
24:15
Speaker 1: these clergymen should not be traveling around Germany telling people
24:21
Speaker 1: two pay money and say they're sorry before they can
24:26
Speaker 1: eat the butter that they already made. They already may
24:29
Speaker 1: be paid for, right, they already churned themselves. The religious
24:34
Speaker 1: institution was not involved in the creation of the butter.
24:39
Speaker 1: You just had to pay them. And this practice, which
24:44
Speaker 1: was seen as selling forgiveness, became very, very widespread, and
24:50
Speaker 1: I loved this. I loved this phrase, and we talked
24:53
Speaker 1: about a little bit off air. Professor of Lutheran History
24:57
Speaker 1: and Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary called it this
25:02
Speaker 1: that's Dr Kurcy Sturna an economy of grace. Yeah, that's
25:09
Speaker 1: pretty pretty great image. And there's a quote from Professor
25:13
Speaker 1: Sturno says, today we buy life insurance and health insurance
25:16
Speaker 1: to secure our possessions. In the Middle Ages, the only
25:18
Speaker 1: security came through church. These indulgences were the people's insurance policies,
25:23
Speaker 1: tangible pieces of paper that said, hey, I'm good, get
25:27
Speaker 1: out of health free exactly. But as we've been saying,
25:30
Speaker 1: for Luther, these clergies selling indulgences represented just kind of
25:35
Speaker 1: totally exposed what he saw as kind of the rot
25:39
Speaker 1: within the Roman Catholic Church that convinced poor peasants that
25:44
Speaker 1: they could be forgiven for a price. And in Luther's
25:49
Speaker 1: particular theology, um forgiveness was free and you could be
25:55
Speaker 1: saved by faith alone and grace alone, and it did
25:59
Speaker 1: not have to fall allow this you know, bizarre pyramids
26:03
Speaker 1: scheme of like paying for forgiveness, which you know, I
26:06
Speaker 1: mean it totally cheapens it if you're thinking about it
26:09
Speaker 1: like objectively, right, especially when consider uh different parts uh
26:15
Speaker 1: different passages of the Bible which talk about the dangers
26:21
Speaker 1: of the dangers have counted on wealth. Right. This leads
26:31
Speaker 1: us to an interesting parallel. Is it a coincidence that
26:35
Speaker 1: most of the dairy rich countries that were producing and
26:38
Speaker 1: using butter at the time were the same nations that
26:41
Speaker 1: broke away from the Catholic Church in the sixte century? Man,
26:44
Speaker 1: Butter's delicious, and you know where they clearly needed it. Yeah,
26:50
Speaker 1: there's there's no old quotation that I remember reading that says,
26:55
Speaker 1: every paraphrase something along the lines of like every nation
27:00
Speaker 1: is uh seven days away from revolution if they're not eating.
27:06
Speaker 1: Because food is one of these fundamental motivators. And we're
27:10
Speaker 1: talking about people who live in a staple food economy.
27:14
Speaker 1: These are not people who had, as we mentioned earlier,
27:17
Speaker 1: this vast variety of food they could eat for fun,
27:22
Speaker 1: you know, well, and and I know I keep joking
27:25
Speaker 1: about the deliciousness that is butter, and that's you know,
27:28
Speaker 1: surely some part of it. But this was something that
27:32
Speaker 1: they needed to properly cook their food and you know,
27:36
Speaker 1: make it easier to digest and to be nourished by.
27:39
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, if they were cooking vegetables. It's
27:42
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of fun eating raw vegetables, you know.
27:46
Speaker 1: I mean, you want to do a nice little stir
27:48
Speaker 1: fry or something, and butter gives you what you need
27:51
Speaker 1: to do that if you don't have access to cooking oils.
27:54
Speaker 1: This leads to what professors Stirner calls one of Luther's
27:59
Speaker 1: biggest eatings. Nothing about eating, drinking, sleeping, marrying, or sex
28:03
Speaker 1: is sin. Not believing in God is sin. That's a
28:06
Speaker 1: quote from That's a quote from the professor and then
28:09
Speaker 1: sums it up this way. And I love how approachable
28:12
Speaker 1: this professor's language is. And she's the one who says, like,
28:16
Speaker 1: we're good. Yeah, same professor, she says. In other words,
28:20
Speaker 1: everything is cool. Eating butter is cool. One of the
28:23
Speaker 1: reasons why the Reformation was so successful it was that
28:25
Speaker 1: Luther radically changed how people thought about what's wrong and
28:29
Speaker 1: what's permissible, and so in a very real way, something
28:35
Speaker 1: that seems simple to us today, something simple as when
28:39
Speaker 1: you are allowed to eat butter. In part Lad Martin
28:43
Speaker 1: Luther to march up on October thirty one and fifteen
28:47
Speaker 1: seventeen and publish his nine Theses. Uh. And the door
28:53
Speaker 1: that we were referring to the way, the way the
28:56
Speaker 1: story slash legend goes is that he nailed it to
29:01
Speaker 1: a church door in his hometown of Wittenberg. And these,
29:07
Speaker 1: you know, the the whole crux of Theses was to
29:12
Speaker 1: call into question fundamentally, you know, the idea of the
29:16
Speaker 1: pope being essentially godlike, and you know, specifically this idea
29:22
Speaker 1: of God being completely removed from the average man and
29:29
Speaker 1: woman and their ability to communicate directly with God through prayer. Yes, absolutely,
29:35
Speaker 1: And the printing press also emerges on the scene, which
29:40
Speaker 1: means these teachings spread rapidly. In today, as we record this,
29:46
Speaker 1: there are more than forty thousand Protestant denominations across the globe.
29:52
Speaker 1: Theses was like, you know, the first meme that's not bad,
29:56
Speaker 1: it's pretty bad. A lot memes though, I think everything
29:59
Speaker 1: I your memetic exactly meme classifications aside. This is pretty
30:05
Speaker 1: profound to think that butter of all things and change
30:11
Speaker 1: that could change the world. And I wonder if people ever,
30:14
Speaker 1: if people ever think about that when they're the next time,
30:17
Speaker 1: you know, they're in church, or they go to a
30:19
Speaker 1: youth group where they Oh, and I do have to
30:21
Speaker 1: point out Martin Luther was not by any measure a
30:25
Speaker 1: a perfect man, but in this case he did something amazing.
30:32
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating. You know, if you if you were
30:35
Speaker 1: listening to this and you identify as Protestant, uh, give it,
30:41
Speaker 1: give it a think and check out butter rich history
30:45
Speaker 1: to learn more about this strange, fascinating, oftentimes invisible and
30:50
Speaker 1: profound ways in which this food stuff affects you. What'st
30:54
Speaker 1: thou like the taste of butter? Man, I'm so glad
30:58
Speaker 1: we saved that reference for in anybody, anybody, which everybody
31:04
Speaker 1: but I was looking into it as well, and I
31:06
Speaker 1: didn't think about this until we were researching this. But
31:08
Speaker 1: the family that's portrayed in that film are Protestant, but
31:13
Speaker 1: they're like even more extreme versions of Protestant that they
31:16
Speaker 1: want to just completely extricate everything associated with the Catholic Church.
31:20
Speaker 1: And uh, there's a fantastic moment where butter comes up
31:25
Speaker 1: as being almost like the most sinful indulgence. So that's
31:30
Speaker 1: still stuck around even through Protestantism, although it certainly wasn't
31:35
Speaker 1: like being taxed or in that way. Oh, that's a
31:38
Speaker 1: brilliant connection. Well done. I didn't think about that. But
31:41
Speaker 1: what do you think about that? Is that is that accurate?
31:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I I think it's intentional.
31:47
Speaker 1: I will go on the record saying I think it's
31:49
Speaker 1: intentional because I was always these were Puritans in the film.
31:53
Speaker 1: I was always wrapped up in the concept of the
31:56
Speaker 1: clever word play of You know, we have talked about
32:01
Speaker 1: this when we're hanging out earlier, not just the because folks,
32:04
Speaker 1: we fan boyd over this film so hard. Uh, it
32:09
Speaker 1: was all we talked about for several weeks. And I
32:11
Speaker 1: am so surprised that I missed that. And thank you
32:14
Speaker 1: for telling me, because I dwelt on the concept of
32:17
Speaker 1: not butter, the taste of butter. It's like the pursuit
32:21
Speaker 1: of happiness, right. Um. But now I'm I'm going to
32:25
Speaker 1: go back and watch The Witch and I might just
32:28
Speaker 1: do it eating a stick of butter. There's such a
32:33
Speaker 1: thing as too much of a good thing. Well, we're
32:35
Speaker 1: gonna find out firsthead. I'm I'm mostly kidding. I have
32:39
Speaker 1: I have never to my acknowledge eating an entire stick
32:41
Speaker 1: of butter. You give her a deep fried butter at carnivals.
32:43
Speaker 1: That's a thing I have, but I haven't tried it.
32:46
Speaker 1: Did you ever given a show? Dude? No, too much
32:48
Speaker 1: of a good thing. It just seems really weird. I
32:50
Speaker 1: feel like butter is an ingredient and not its own snack. It. Well, mean,
32:54
Speaker 1: it's like it's good on a piece of toast, for sure,
32:57
Speaker 1: which essentially is me. Come on, let's be real eating
32:59
Speaker 1: a piece of toast with butter on it. It's a
33:01
Speaker 1: vehicle for butter. It's true. There's a there's a lot
33:05
Speaker 1: of stuff. Like some people drink popcorn is a vehicle
33:07
Speaker 1: for butter. Well, you guys out there, tell us how
33:10
Speaker 1: you like to eat butter. Do you like to deep
33:12
Speaker 1: fry it? Do you like to just eat it with
33:14
Speaker 1: a spoon? You know, what's your favorite? What about clarified butter?
33:18
Speaker 1: We didn't do so many things. But what am I doing?
33:21
Speaker 1: What am I doing? We need to We need to
33:23
Speaker 1: plug our friend Lauren and Annie's podcast, food Stuff. They
33:28
Speaker 1: have a series of episodes on the history of butter
33:32
Speaker 1: um and they also have a video that's pretty cool
33:35
Speaker 1: called get Some Culture. Butter t is in parentheses, So
33:40
Speaker 1: check out food Stuff. It's another house Stuff Works podcast
33:43
Speaker 1: and they're they're friends of ours, so they're cool and
33:46
Speaker 1: you should listen to them. And there was what uh
33:52
Speaker 1: what a time capsule, a glimpse back not just into
33:57
Speaker 1: the history of butter and religion, but into our own show.
34:03
Speaker 1: We're gonna be back in just a few days with
34:06
Speaker 1: a brand new episode, but we hope you enjoyed this one.
34:10
Speaker 1: As as we said at the top, this is not
34:13
Speaker 1: something you can find on Apple podcasts, but every so
34:17
Speaker 1: often we're gonna share some classics like this with you
34:21
Speaker 1: in the meantime. Huge thanks to you, Ben Bolan for
34:25
Speaker 1: for taking us on this journey into butter and Religion,
34:29
Speaker 1: Max Williams, Producer extraordinaire Christopher haciotas here in Spirit, Alex Williams,
34:34
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. Big big thanks to our research associate,
34:38
Speaker 1: the one and only gay Bluesier, And big thanks to
34:42
Speaker 1: our own what would you call him? The main Protestant
34:48
Speaker 1: of this reformed episode, Jonathan Strickland. He does protest a lot. Yeah,
34:54
Speaker 1: I was going for the protest thing. We'll see you
34:58
Speaker 1: next time Flix. Yeah. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
35:08
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast, or wherever
35:11
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.