Latest / Ridiculous History / Butter: Protestantism's Secret Ingredient?

Transcript

Butter: Protestantism's Secret Ingredient? · Ridiculous History

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