Cai Lun
Constantine I
Theodosius I
Justinian I
Yuan Chwang
Charlemagne
Erik the Red
Saladin
Frederick II
Heinz Tell
Cai Lun (50-121)
Constantine I
Theodosius I
Justinian I
Yuan Chwang
Charlemagne
Erik the Red
Saladin
Frederick II
Heinz Tell
Cai Lun (50-121)
After serving as a court eunuch, I was given several promotions. When I was 40 years old, I was put in charge of manufacturing instruments and weapons. When I was 55, I invented the composition for paper along with the paper-making process using a new technique. I pounded and cooked fibers from bark, hemp, silk, and fishing nets and poured the fiber soup onto a flat surface. I drained the water and let it dry into a thin matted sheet. I submitted the process to Emperor He. He was very pleased with my invention. He granted me an aristocratic title and I became very wealthy.
When I was 71 years old, I was wrongly implicated for the death of Empress Deng's death and was ordered to report to prison. I took a bath and dressed in fine silk robes and committed suicide by drinking poison. 100 years after I died, paper became widely used as a writing medium in China. Paper enabled China to develop its civilization through widespread literature and literacy.
Within 600 years, China's paper-making technique had spread to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Some Chinese paper makers were captured by Arabs and the techniques of paper-making then spread to the West. When paper was first introduced to Europe it gradually revolutionized the manner in which written communication could be spread from region to region. Along with contact between Arabs and Europeans during the Crusades and the recovery of ancient Greek classics, the widespread use of paper aided in the widespread spread of knowledge. 1,000 years after I died, China started to issue paper currency.
I received a formal education where I learned Latin literature, Greek, and philosophy. My cultural environment was open, fluid and socially mobile, and I could mix with intellectuals, both pagan and Christian. When I was 24, I fought for 3 years, first against barbarians on the Danube and then against the Persians in Syria and in Mesopotamia. By the time I was 32, I had become a tribune, giving me the right to propose legislation, immunity from being charged with any crime, and powers to veto any decisions made by any magistrates.
I returned from the eastern front in time to witness the beginnings of the most severe persecution of Christians in Roman history resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 Christians, and the torture, imprisonment, or dislocation of many more. An "Edict against the Christians" was published, ordering the destruction of Christian scriptures, liturgical books, and places of worship across the empire. It prohibited Christians from assembling for worship. Christians were also deprived of the right to petition the courts, or to respond to actions brought against them in court. Christian senators, officers, politicians, veterans, and soldiers were deprived of their ranks; and imperial freed-men were re-enslaved. Local judges often enforced executions and burning Christians alive became a common method of executing them. A second edict was published, ordering the arrest and imprisonment of bishops and priests. Prisons began to fill forcing ordinary criminals to be released.
I spend a year in northern Britain at my father's side. He became severely sick and before he died, he named me his successor. After my promotion to emperor, I remained in Britain, and completed the reconstruction of military bases begun under my father's rule, and ordered the repair of the region's roadways. I appointed my mother Helena to locate the relics of Judeo-Christian tradition. Helena undertook a trip to the Holy Places in Palestine. She was responsible for the construction of 3 churches. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem built on the site where Jesus was born, the Church on the Mount of Olives built on the site where Jesus ascended to heaven, and a church in Egypt identifying the Burning Bush of Sinai. Helena also claimed to have found the cross that Jesus was crucified on, the nails that were used to nail him to the cross, and the robe he wore when he was crucified.
When I was 41 years old I decreed a formal end to persecution of Christians. I returned to Christians all they had lost during the persecutions. I wrote an edict called "The Edict of Milan" that officially granted full tolerance to Christianity and all religions in the Empire. The document had special benefits for Christians, legalizing their religion and granting them restoration for all property seized during the previous persecution.
7 years later, my co-ruler Licinius reneged on the religious freedom promised by me and began to oppress Christians anew, generally without bloodshed, but resorting to confiscations and sacking of Christian office holders. That became a challenge to me and resulted in a great civil war. Licinius was aided by Goth mercenaries. I was outnumbered but marched in the name of Christ. We were fired by zeal and emerged victorious. Licinius surrendered on the promise that his life and the life of his soldiers would be spared. I nevertheless accused him of plotting against me and had him arrested and hanged. Then I became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire. I set up my capital in the Greek city of Byzantium, which offered the advantage of having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns of urbanism, during the preceding century. The city was eventually then renamed Constantinople in my honor. The city remained the capital of the Byzantine Empire for over one thousand years.
To pay for public expenses, the silver coins were highly debased with bronze and copper. The currency became overvalued in terms of its actual metal content and caused runaway inflation. Trade networks broke down and people started to trade by barter. This produced profound changes that in many ways foreshadowed the much decentralized economic character of the coming Middle Ages. I did not restore the pure silver currency, preferring instead to concentrate on minting large quantities of good standard gold pieces and continuing to issue silver coins which were highly debased with bronze. As a consequence of this monetary policy, the rift between classes widened: the rich benefited from the stability in purchasing power of the gold piece, while the poor had to cope with the debased silver pieces. My monetary policies were closely associated with my religious ones, in that increased minting was associated with measures of confiscation of all gold and silver statues from pagan temples, which were declared as imperial property and as monetary assets and melted to make coins.
I planned to be baptized in the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized but I fell sick and died before I could reach the river.
When I was 21, I accompanied my father to Britannia to help quell a rebellion of the Roman garrison at Hadrian's Wall. These invading barbarians overwhelmed nearly all of the Roman outposts and settlements sacking the cities and murdering, raping and enslaving the civilians. Local Roman agents that provided intelligence on barbarian movements seemed to have betrayed their paymasters for bribes, making the attacks completely unexpected. Deserting soldiers and escaped slaves roamed the countryside and turned to robbery to support themselves. The chaos was widespread and the aims of the rebels were simply personal enrichment.
When I was 27, I was military commander of a Roman province on the lower Danube. I was dismissed from my command after the loss of two of my legions. I retired to Spain and adapted to the life of a provincial aristocrat. When I was 35, I was invited by Gratian, the new emperor of the West Roman Empire to take command of the Illyrian army. This led me to eventually become Emperor of the East Roman Empire.
When I was 33, I declared the Catholic Church the only legitimate Imperial religion, ending official state support for the traditional pagan religions and officially ending pagan sacrifice and religious rituals. A year later I started persecution of pagans. When I was 46, I banned the Olympic Games and they stayed banned for 1,500 years.
A year later I died. My sons inherited my throne and ended up splitting the Roman Empire into east and west. The empire was never again reunited. I am considered a saint among Orthodox Christians.
When I was 39, I was appointed consul, the highest position next to Emperor. Later I was commander of the army of the east. When I was 43, I married my mistress Theodora who was a prostitute of high class in the court of Constantinople. She was 20 years younger than me. Theodora became very influential in the politics of the Empire. She proved to be very intelligent, "street smart", a good judge of character and my greatest supporter. When I was 45, I was proclaimed associate Emperor with my uncle Justin. As Justin became senile near the end of his reign, I became the de facto ruler and in the same year when he died, I became the sole sovereign. I was known as "the Emperor who never sleeps" on account of my work habits.
When I was 50, some members of 2 chariot teams, the Blues and the Greens, had been arrested for murder in connection with deaths that occurred during hooligan rioting after a recent chariot race. The murderers were to be hanged, and most of them were. But two of them, one from the Blue team and one from the Green team escaped and took refuge in the sanctuary of a church surrounded by an angry mob supporting and demanding their pardon. I was nervous as I was in the midst of negotiating with the Persians over peace in the east and there was enormous resentment over high taxes. I commuted the sentences of the hooligans from death to imprisonment. The Blues and Greens responded by demanding that the two men be pardoned entirely. The riots which became to be known as the Nika riots took place over the course of a week. They were the most violent riots in the history of the world. Nearly half the city of Constantinople was burned and destroyed. I considered fleeing the capital, but thanks to Theodora and her insistence that I stay tough, I remained in the city and ordered 30,000 unarmed civilians to be killed and their leaders to be executed. The destruction that had taken place during the revolt provided me with an opportunity to tie my name to a series of splendid new buildings, most notably the architectural innovation of the domed Hagia Sophia.
When I was 59, there was a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague. It marked the end of an age of splendor. The plague started in Constantinople by infected rats on grain boats arriving from Egypt. I was struck by the plague but recovered. Theodora died. I had a keen interest in theological matters and actively participated in debates on Christian doctrine before then, but after she died, I became even more devoted to religion.
I achieved lasting fame through my judicial reforms, particularly through the complete revision of all Roman law, something that had not previously been attempted. It eventually became the basis of much of the European law code. I passed many laws protecting women. A husband could not take on a major debt without his wife giving her consent. Under my laws, women were protected from being forced into prostitution and prostitutes were protected from exploitation. Rapists were treated severely. Women charged with major crimes were guarded by other women to prevent sexual abuse. When a woman's husband died, her dowry was returned.
I was an Eastern Roman Emperor who sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire. I was a builder. I strengthened the borders of the Empire from Africa to the East through the construction of fortifications, and ensured Constantinople of its water supply through construction of underground cisterns. To prevent floods from damaging the strategically important border town of Dara, I built an arch dam, one of the first of its type to be ever built. I also built the large 430m long Sangarius Bridge to secure a major military supply route to the east.
Hagia Sophia was built 120 years before I was born as an Orthodox church. 40 years later it was burned down in a riot and destroyed and rebuilt. It was again burned and destroyed during the Nika riots and I built on the site an entirely different larger and more majestic basilica. It remained a church for more than 1,000 years before it was converted to a mosque by the Ottoman Turks. It remained a mosque for more than 500 years before it was converted into a museum. It is famous in particular for its massive dome which is 55 m high. Hagia Sophia is famous for the mystical quality of light that reflects everywhere in the interior of the nave, giving the dome the appearance of hovering above. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have changed the history of architecture. It remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.
When I died, I left no children. I am considered a saint among Orthodox Christians.
From my boyhood I took to reading religious books, including the Chinese classics and the writings of ancient sages. Along with my older brothers and sister, I received an early education from my father on orthodox Confucianism. He was amazed that by the time I was only 8, I was already practicing Confucian rituals. When I was 9, my father died and I went to live with my elder brother who was studying to be a Buddhist monk in a monastery. I decided also to become a Buddhist monk and was ordained at the age of 20.
I traveled throughout China in search of sacred books of Buddhism. The myriad of contradictions and discrepancies in the texts at that time prompted me to decide to go to India and study in the cradle of Buddhism. I studied Sanskrit, the language used by the Buddhists in India. Even though my emperor prohibited foreign travel, when I was 27, I persuaded some Buddhist border guards to allow me to slip out of the empire. I traveled across the Gobi Desert and met the king of Turpan, a Buddhist who equipped me for my travels with letters of introduction and valuables to serve as funds. I eventually met the great Khan whose relationship to my emperor was friendly at the time. My traveling party and I came across some abandoned Buddhist temples and I impressed the king with my preaching. I later encountered a community of more than a thousand Buddhist monks. We saw many Buddhist sites and relics and two large Buddhas carved out of the rock face. I came across many early Buddhist texts which I translated into Chinese.
When I was 44, 17 years after I started my trip, I returned home and was greeted with much honor. I refused all high civil appointments offered by my emperor who was still reigning and I retired to a monastery and devoted my energy to translating Buddhist texts until I died at the age of 62.
Called the "Father of Europe" my empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Roman Empire. My rule spurred a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through my foreign conquests and internal reforms, I encouraged the formation of a common European identity. Both the French and German monarchies were my descendants. I went to live in my father's villa when I was 7 years old. My friends made fun of me because my father was so short. My father Pepin died in Paris when I was 26 and my brother and I succeeded him. I married Desiderata, a princess from Lombardi but the marriage lasted less than a year because I fell in love with a 13-year-old German named Hildegard whom I married.
I continued my father's policy towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain. I forced Christianity on the people I conquered.
When I was 46, the Avars, a pagan Mongolian horde that invaded and settled down in Hungary started to make trouble. I defeated them and had them converted to Christianity. When I was 59, Pope Leo III, was mistreated by the Romans, who tried to put out his eyes and tear out his tongue. Leo escaped and fled to me and asked me to intervene. I marched my army to Rome and restored him back as pope. He in turn crowned me "Emperor of Rome". One hand washes the other.
For centuries, the Emperors of both the Western and Eastern Roman empire made competing claims of sovereignty. In any event, I claimed that I was the renewer of the Roman Empire, which was split into Eastern Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople and Western Roman Empire with its capital in Rome.
I implemented economic reforms. I abolished the monetary system based on gold because of the shortage of gold. I established a new standard based on silver. I instituted principles for accounting practice which laid down strict rules for the way in which incomes and expenses were to be recorded. As commanded in the Bible, I prohibited Jews from lending money. I controlled prices and levies on certain goods and commodities.
A part of my success as warrior and administrator could be traced to my admiration for learning. My reign and the era it ushered in were often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance because of the flowering of scholarship, literature, art, and architecture which characterize it. I promoted monastic schools and their centers for book-copying. Many works of classical Latin were copied and preserved thanks to me.
I promoted education. I ordered that my children and grandchildren be well-educated. Even though I never learned how to read and write myself, I was a real lover of books. There was much translating going on in my court. I pressured for clerics to translate Christian creed and the prayers from Latin into languages understood by the commoners. Book production was made by hand in large monastic libraries. Books were so in demand during my time that monastic libraries lent out books only if the borrowers put up something of value as collateral to make sure those books were returned. I founded a library at my court. The different ways the letters of the alphabet were written were standardized throughout my empire during my reign. I took an intense interest in church music causing liturgical music to flourish.
I credited my many military victories to the horses I used for my troops. I was constantly traveling. Without the horses, I could never have maintained such a large empire.
I ruled only 13 years before I died at the ripe old age of 72. I followed the traditional division of the empire on my death among my sons. I had 18 children over the course of my life with my 10 wives.
When I was 32, my servant started a landslide on the neighboring farm. My neighbor's friend killed my servant and in return, I killed him. Some thief stole some of my stuff, so I stole them back. The thief ran after me with a few of his men and I killed them all. For all that, I was sentenced and banished from Iceland for 3 years.
I sailed west from Iceland to a somewhat mysterious and little-known land. I rounded the southern tip of the island and sailed up the western coast. I eventually reached a part of the coast that, for the most part, seemed ice-free and consequently had conditions similar to those of Iceland that promised growth and future prosperity. I spent my 3 years of exile exploring this land. When I returned to Iceland after my exile had expired, I brought back with me stories of the land I found.
I called it "Greenland" to lure potential settlers. I knew that people would be attracted to go there if it had a favorable name. I also knew that the success of any settlement in Greenland would need the support of as many people as possible. My salesmanship proved successful, as many people living on poor land in Iceland and those that had suffered a recent famine became convinced that Greenland held great opportunity. After spending the winter in Iceland, I returned to Greenland with a large number of colonists and established two colonies on its southwest coast. The settlement flourished, growing to 5000 inhabitants spread over a considerable area.
My wife and I had 4 children, 3 boys and a girl. My son Leif Erikson became the first Viking to explore the land in North America which we called Vinland and was later called Newfoundland in Canada. He invited me on the voyage but I fell off my horse on my way to the ship and I took this as a bad sign, leaving my son to continue without my company. Leif's successful expedition encouraged other Vikings to also make the journey. Leif's brother sailed with a crew of 30 men to Newfoundland and spent the following winter at Leif's camp. The first apparent contact between the Vikings and the indigenous people resulted in hostilities and killings. We left no permanent settlements there and our discovery with time was remembered only as legend.
I died the winter after my son's departure. One group of immigrants to Greenland brought with them an epidemic that ravaged the colony killing many of its leading citizens including me. The colony in Greenland lasted only for 500 years and was abandoned.
When I was 26, I was sent to Egypt with my uncle. I quickly climbed up the Islam ranks as a result of my military successes against Crusader assaults and my personal closeness to the Shia spiritual leader caliph al-Adid. The Fatimids claimed descent from Fatima, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad. When I was 32, my uncle died and the caliph appointed me as his chief adviser. After the caliph died, I took over the government. By the time I was 50, I had re-captured Palestine with its capital city Jerusalem from the Crusaders who had conquered it 88 years earlier.
My reportedly noble and chivalrous behavior was noted by Christian chroniclers, and despite being the worst enemy of the Crusaders, I won the respect of many of them. Rather than becoming a hated figure in Europe, I became a celebrated example of the principles of chivalry. When all military attempts and battles made by Richard the Lionheart to re-take Jerusalem were defeated, my relationship with him was one of chivalrous mutual respect as well as military rivalry. When Richard lost his horse, I sent him two replacements. Even though I eventually defeated him, I nevertheless made a treaty allowing all Christian pilgrims open access to Jerusalem.
I died of a fever in Damascus shortly after Richard left. I was 56 when I died and having given much of my wealth to my subjects, I was a relatively poor man. I was buried in a small garden by the great mosque in Damascus.
I became one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages. I inherited my kingdom when I was 3. My mother died when I was 4 and Pope Innocent III raised me up. He was not as innocent as his name suggested. He was arrogant, aggressive and one of the strongest persecutors of accused heretics. Despite being raised up by the pope, I ended up getting a remarkably mixed education. I was very curious and gathered Jewish, Moslem and Christian philosophers around me. I ended up with an Arabic view of Christianity, and a Christian view of Islam. I denounced the corruption of the church blaming it on the pride it showed and the wealth it flaunted. I proposed that church property should be confiscated. I spoke Latin, German, French, Greek and Arabic and was an avid patron of science and the arts.
When I was 14, I married a princess. Being a widow, she was very experienced and we soon had a child. We were very happy. I was excommunicated four times and the pope called me the Antichrist. I was very skeptical of religion, claiming that Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were all frauds and deceivers of mankind. I delighted in uttering blasphemies and making mocking remarks directed toward Christian sacraments and beliefs. People found this highly shocking and scandalous.
I liked Muslims. People advised me to exterminate Muslims living in Sicily, but I allowed them to settle on the mainland and build mosques. I even enlisted them in my army and used them as my personal bodyguards. I was criticized for the way I conducted my crusade in the Holy Land. With the power to take Jerusalem, I negotiated for 5 months with the Sultan of Egypt al-Kamil about the surrender of the city. The Sultan summoned me into Jerusalem and entertained me in the most lavish fashion.
The Muslims liked me. After 5 months; Jerusalem was handed over to me without a fight. This was regarded by both Muslims and Christians as highly treasonous. The Knights Templar wanted me assassinated and asked the Muslims for help in doing that. Instead, the Muslims warned me and protected me. The Patriarch of Jerusalem refused to crown me king, so I set the crown on my own head. He complained to the pope that I was too friendly with the Muslims. The pope believed that I had converted to become a Muslim, but I did not care.
I had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and learning. I had a special interest in languages, able to speak the many languages that were spoken in my Empire. I employed Jews from Sicily who had emigrated there from the holy land. I paid them to translate Greek and Arabic works. I simply did not believe things that could not be explained by reason. I forbade trials by ordeal where the test is one of life or death and the proof of innocence is survival. I believed that in a duel, the stronger and most skillful would always win, whether or not he was innocent or guilty. Many of my laws continued to influence modern attitudes, such as my prohibition on physicians acting as their own pharmacists. This was a blow to the charlatanism under which physicians diagnosed dubious maladies in order to sell useless, even dangerous "cures".
I did many experiments on people. In one experiment I locked a prisoner up in a casket with a small hole until he died and looked to see if his soul could be observed escaping though the hole. My favorite and most famous experiment was imprisoning children without any contact to see if they would develop a natural language. Young infants were raised without human interaction in an attempt to determine if there was a natural language that they might demonstrate once their voices matured. I was seeking to discover what language would have been imparted unto Adam and Eve by god. My experiments with the children proved that children needed human interaction and needed to be spoken to - either by sounds or by touch for their development.
I collected rare stones and other curiosities. I engaged great artists to work for me and I took great pleasure in beautifying things. I loved exotic animals and built a zoo that housed giraffes, cheetahs, lynxes, leopards, exotic birds and an elephant. I was also interested in the stars, and often sent letters to the leading scholars of the time asking for solutions to questions of science, mathematics and physics. When I was 30, I founded the University of Naples, the world's first state university.
I died when I was 56 and after my death, my sons, the heirs to my throne, were so inept that my family line quickly died out. I did however have a godson that proved very successful. His name was Rudolf Habsburg. I took him on as my godson when I was 24 years old. I promised his parents, very good friends of mine, that if anything happens to them, that I would treat their newborn son Rudolph like my own. When Rudolph grew up to be a man, he visited me and my court very frequently. I disliked the custom of granting lands for favors done. Instead I appointed officials and rather than give them land, I paid them a monthly salary. Nevertheless, his loyalty to me and my son, the king of Germany, was richly rewarded by grants of land.
Rudolph was the son of the count of Habsburg and the daughter of the count of Kyburg. When he was 21 his father died and he inherited large estates around a 200 year old castle called the Habsburg Castle near Brugg, in northern Switzerland, near the German border. When Rudolph was 55, he was elected king of the Germans by princes who hoped that a knight as poor and obscure as he was would be biddable and weak. Rudolph started out with little land and little power, but he knew of a simple way to obtain more land and thus more power. He went to war with his neighbors and confiscated their lands, like he was entitled to do so as king. He married off his sons and daughters with the families he conquered.
Although Rudolph had a large family, having married 2 times, he was survived by only one son. By arranged marriages, inheritance and obtaining high positions in the church hierarchy for his family members, he was able to increase his power until he had become one of the most esteemed and influential noble families of Europe. His family line went on to become one of the leading and long lasting royal dynasties in Europe.
Living the life of Heinz was one of my fullest and most memorable lives I have had, despite that it was so full of horror.
I was born in the foothills of central Switzerland to a farmer who was a leading tour guide. I was the oldest brother of 4 brothers and 5 sisters. My parents were very disappointed in me and kept on repeating "he won't amount to anything" since I was old enough to understand this dreaded phrase. No wonder. People expected a lot from me considering that my father, William Tell, was renowned for his strength, courage, and marksmanship with his cross bow. He could consistently split an apple placed on a pole 20 paces away. He was a very well-known and sought after guide for the royalty who enjoyed coming for a visit to hunt and climb the mountains and enjoy and relax in the beautiful and peaceful settings of lakes and 5 star hotels. As my father was the best guide around, he was very much in demand by the rich and famous. His area was the choice spot for the wealthy to visit and stay for a time to relax and recuperate between their battles. The hotels followed strict rules regarding disturbance such as excessive noise after 10 pm or doing any housework on Sundays.
When I was 10 years old, I ran away from home and joined an army of thousands of Christians marching to re- conquer Jerusalem from the Muslims. All who joined received an emblem. We were told that all of our sins would be forgiven when we partake of this pilgrimage. We were also told that if we were killed fighting for Christ, we would be guaranteed to go directly to heaven. Lastly we were told that if we won and survived the battles, we would be blessed and that all of our sins would be forgiven. We were promised that we could plunder all we wanted and rape as many as we needed. Being only 10, none of those promises meant anything at all to me. They explained that almost 200 years before the crusaders liberated Jerusalem but unfortunately could not keep it free for very long. Once well on their way, the crusaders slaughtered all the foreigners they met along the way, from the Hungarians, to the Jews.
I was taken care of by the pretty ladies that the soldiers took with them or picked up along the way to cook their food and to take care of their wounds by grunting and sleeping with them. I always stayed in the back and whenever the fighting got too close, I was hid under the hay we carried for the horses. My main duty was to water, feed and clean about 10 horses, including the one I was riding. I didn't see much fighting but what I did see were the wounded with fingers, hands and arms cut off. I saw people without legs left behind on the ground to slowly die. I was fortunate to be able to return home in one piece despite that I returned carrying less than I came with.
A great opportunity arose when I returned home. A new court was set up by the church that tried Christians who were accused of heresy and cleans them of their sins. I was hired to be part of their cleaning staff. Heresy was the practicing of pagan or infidel rituals by infidels who had converted to be Christians. Many Jews converted to Christianity not because they had faith, but because they feared persecution. These cheaters continued to practice their Jewish rituals in private, only claiming to be Christian in public. Other Christians were relying on herbs instead of prayers to heal themselves and to heal others. There were a growing number of doctors and nurses who were practicing the infidel Moslem practice of covering their mouth with a face mask while caring for the sick, and washing their hands after handling each patient, as if they did not have enough faith in the church's recommendation of prayer and bloodletting to heal the sick.
Heresy cases were increasing at an alarming rate. The church eventually felt it necessary to do something about this and set up cleansing facilities called "Inquisitions". The church claimed that heretics were punished and forced to stop their sinning from soiling their souls not so much for their own good, but more for the public good. They were setting an example to help wean others away from the evils they would otherwise commit. I was deemed too young to watch the proceedings, but I did hear the screams of terror as the souls of sinners were being cleansed. I witnessed the end result of broken bones and cut flesh. I had to clean up the blood on the floor of the rooms that were used to test souls for guilt or innocence and to clean them of guilt.
One day a very important guest Herr Gessler arrived. He was sent by the Habsburg royal family to try to get into the very profitable tourist industry my father was running. My father refused to bow down to him as a sign of respect as required by law. My father was found guilty and was sentenced to be executed with his youngest son, my most beloved brother, Walter. Herr Gessler hoping to use my father's skills with the bow negotiated a settlement that would pardon my father and his son if he was able to slit an apple placed on little Walter's head. My poor dad had no choice. Walter told me shortly after with a shaking voice that his knees fortunately buckled when he saw his father release his arrow. I took my father aside one evening and we decided that we would kill Herr Gessler for his cruel deeds. I killed him myself. He was the first and last person I have killed in my life.
To get absolution for my grave sin of murder, instead of booking a crusade filled with fighting and death and promise of plunder, I booked a pilgrimage to Spain that promised to absolve me of my sins. Looking forward to all of the adventure and drinking along the way, I bought a good backpack and followed the roads and paths to Santiago de la Compestaella in Spain to pay homage to Apostle James's grave. I had an all-weather hat and a fur coat protecting me from cold and rain and a long walking stick protecting me from threatening wild bears along the way.
One of my first memorable stop overs was in Rueggisberg in Switzerland at the Cluny monastery run by the Benedictine order. Just before the monastery, there was a small chapel in Riggisberg where we all prayed for a safe journey. Built over 100 years before, the monastery at Rueggisberg was where the pilgrims who could afford to stay there wined and dined and regained their strength to continue the journey. The monks there were renowned and sought after lumberjacks who cleared the lands around the area of the dense forests and provided settlers cleared fields for farming and timber for building their barns and houses. Once pilgrims were mentally and physically recuperated, or their budgets were drained, they continued to Fribourg and to the Lake of Geneva.
I stopped by to climb the holy hill at Guggisberg nearby where it was rumored that Jesus visited 1300 years before. I never reached Spain. I met a daughter of a cheese maker, fell in love with her and we opened up a butcher shop in the next town in Riggisberg. After I retired, I helped run a local hospital.
When I was 90, there was an epidemic outbreak that killed 1 in every 2 people. It was referred to as the “Black Death”. The Jews were blamed for poisoning wells and causing the plague. Their houses were expropriated and all their possessions were taken and they were sentenced to be burned alive. I concentrated on taking care of the sick. Instead of bloodletting and praying for their health, I quarantined them and recommended the nurses to wash their hand after handling patents. I was warned by the bishop that my actions were heretic because they were rituals practiced by the infidel Muslims.
I was brought before the inquisition and was found guilty of heresy and was burned alive at the stake. I fainted before the fire got too hot. Some kind unknown person convinced the executioner that hemp was the hottest burning plant available and made sure that the plant she placed under my feet were not too dry to ensure a slow burn. By the time the flames got sufficiently high to burn me, I was so high that I passed out from the smoke. When I returned home I felt like I had a burnout. My death ended up to be a highlight of my life.
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