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The
Middle Ages do represent a certain amount of human progress. People did start shaving and taking care of their hair again, if only
to get the vermin out. It was an age of goofy hats and shoes with long,
pointed toes with bells on the end. A high forehead was considered
desirable, so ladies would pluck themselves bald all the way back to
the ears. We obviously live in a much more enlightned age today; if those medieval babes had been as smart as we are today they would have gotten multiple tatoos and had their navels, both ears multiple times, and their noses pierced. |
| Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (Red Beard) consolidated the Holy Roman Empire, beat up Milan and the Lombard League, gave the Pope a dutch rub, and then got embroiled in the Fouth Crusade. It is said, by those who don't know any better, that he awakens from his sleep in a mountain in central Germany every hundred years to see if Germany needs his help. Sometimes he and King Arthur get together and play cards. |  |
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Despite his curly locks, soulful eyes and magnificent moustacios, Vlad Tzepesh, Prince of Wallachia, was not a nice man. He may have been the most awful human being who ever lived. He was given the name Drakul, meaning "Dragon," for his ferocity in battle. Vlad the Impaler was the original Dracula. When two foreign ambassadors refused to doff their hats to him, he had their hats nailed to their heads. By 1462, when he was deposed, he had killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people in the name of good government. He killed merchants who cheated their customers. He killed women who had affairs. He had one woman impaled because her husband's shirt was too short. That was a lesson to her, by golly. |