History has a long culture of hoaxes, and perhaps one of the most bizarre is the monstrous births of Mary Toft.

Mary Toft with one of her 'children'

In 1726, in Goldiming near Surrey Mary Toft went into labour. She was 25 and illiterate, working as a servant and married to a clothier and has suffered a miscarriage a month earlier. nevertheless she still seemed to be pregnant and, as she struggled through the labour, she apparently gave birth to something resembling a liverless cat.Apparently confused, her family asked the local obstetrician John Howard to attend Mary and it became clear that she had given birth to yet more animal parts. Things came to a remarkable head when, in one day, she claimed to have given birth to nine baby rabbits.

Howard was stunned and sent out word to England's greatest doctors and scientists and even to the King to ask for assistance in investigating the seemingly miraculous case. Intrigued, the king sent out some of his best men and the infamous hoax of Mary Toft's rabbits began in earnest.


Why on Earth did people believe it?

Monstrous births and miracles had been a culture in of itself since time immemorial. Monstrous births could be items of horror or entertainment which could produce a profit but also act as portents from God. Science - proper empirical science - was still in its infancy and, in Mary's case, the idea that rabbits (and dead animal parts) could be generated in the womb was not one that was entirely fanciful. It was believed, for example, that the emotions and imaginings of the mother could be transferred to the foetus and this had in the past been used to explain monstrous births or in cases where a child developed a unexpected genetic trait, such as babies with darker skin when infidelity was ruled out of the equation. As in the case of the 'mooncalf', it was even thought that the moon itself could affect the development of the foetus. 

Mary's story for the births, which took place after a miscarriage a month earlier, was that she had been working in the fields and was startled by a rabbit. When she and a friend tried and fail to catch it and another rabbit she returned home and, when she went to bed, dreamt that she was sat with those two illusive rabbits in her lap. When she woke she fell ill and, for some months, had a very strong desire to eat rabbits, which she could not afford. For the science of the time, it was entirely possible that such a strong maternal impression could influence the development of the foetus, and Mary made sure to physically 'give birth' to more dead rabbits in the presence of scientists to secure her story. So it was, on the whole, taken seriously.

When Mary handed over the dead rabbits as evidence it was here that science started to

make some in-roads to exposing the hoax. King George himself sent the German surgeon Cyriacus Ahlers and Mr.Brand to investigate, and on investigation of the rabbits, Ahlers found that dung pellets still inside the rabbits contained corn, hay and straw. Clearly these had not been created inside the womb. The eminent Midwife Sir Richard Manningham and Sir James Douglas were also called to attend her 'births' and observe them in controlled settings, and also had serious doubts. The reputations of all of the doctors involved were on the line for even entertaining the idea of this being true, but opinions were divided.

The whole situation came to a head when finally Toft's accomplice was caught trying to sneak a rabbit into her room. The doctors waited to see if Mary would incriminate herself and sure enough she went into a dramatic labour that produced nothing. Mary was finally taken into custody and, being threatened with painful medical experimentation, finally admitted to the hoax, explaining that she had inserted dead rabbits into her own birth canal and allowed them to be removed as if she was giving birth. The hoax was exposed, Mary's fame only increased and, despite spending a small amount of time in custody Mary was largely pardoned and was released to avoid further attention and embarrassment. For a long time afterwards the medical profession as a whole was mocked for its gullibility.




Sources
-The curious case of Mary Toft (University of Glasgow Special Collections)
-Mary Toft and her extraordinary delivery of rabbits (The Public Domain Review)
-Notes of Karen Harvey's presentation of 'Rabbits, Whigs and Hunters: Rethinking Mary's toft's Monstrous Births 1726' (10 Dec 2014)
-Mary Toft Image

Ever since the earliest of times, we humans have valued our hair.

The origins of such strange long head hair, contrasted with a relatively hairless body, has been a topic of debate for some years, but perhaps the leading theory is that sexual selection was at work. While long hair offers benefits of warmth in cold climates or protection from a hot sun, nevertheless it's likely that the existence of longer hair in largely due to associations of femininity or health. Whatever the reason, the longer head-hair was here to stay and humans, always eager to define their identities through their looks, jumped on the chance to get creative with their locks. This week I'd like follow the lead of the wonder Medievalists.net's recent post, and show some historical hairstyles that you can try at home.

Statue of Faustina the Younger

These come courtesy of  Janet Stephen, a hairdresser and amateaur archaeologist who was fascinated by how historical hairstyles were created. While many archaeologists and historians suggested that these hairstyles could only have been created with wigs, Janet instead discovered that through using a form of sewing in hairstyles, they could easily and quickly be replicated and used in the day to day. This breakthrough came in 2005 when, studying translations in Roman literature, she found that  the term 'acus' was likely being mistranslated. In the books, this was translated as a 'single-prong hairpin' but in fact it could also be translated as 'needle and thread'. Her theory was published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology in 2008 and she made a name for herself in historical circles.

"I could tell even from the first version that it was a very serious piece of experimental archaeology which not scholar who was not a hairdresser - in other words, no scholar - would have been able to write." John Humphrey, the journal's editor, explained.

Janet's practical work is shown on her youtube channel, where you can find out how to make such beautiful historical hairstyles for yourself, while also learning of where she found her sources.



Agrippina the Younger

 


Ancient Roman Hairstyles For Men

 


 Empress Plotina

Faustina The Younger 

 
 18thc 'Butterfly'/Papillote Curls

 I thoroughly recommend that you spend some time browsing Janet Stephens' youtube channel if you have any interest in fashion or history. 
For one she is an inspiration showing us how, no matter what your background, if you have interest, confidence, creativity and passion you can make a lasting contribution to the study of history. 
For another, her work is living proof of the value of experimental history and archaeology in how to bring what we read in the texts to life for for practical purposes and for emotional ones. In her study of these hairstyles Janet offers a unique insight to what had been an ongoing debate on historical hairstyles, but in doing so she also let us see with real intimacy into the lives of the people that made use of these hairstyles in the day to day. In how their family lives were set up (for example, why they needed someone else to do their hair), how they valued their appearance, and how much physical time and patience that these people would have had to give to making these creative styles happen. With such a life breathed into such a small but important part of these historical figures' daily routines, they are grounded and - as observers from the future - we can see just how like us our ancestors really were.


Sources

-Why is Human Hair So Long?
-Medievalists.net: Medieval hairstyles
-On Pins and Needles: Stylist Turns Ancient Hairdo Debate on Its Head

"Remember remember the 5th of November"....

Halloween is behind us, with all of its ghouls put to rest, and Christmas stretches out ahead. But wedged in between has always been a little holiday that's close to my heart: Bonfire Night.
We all know the story of Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot and how he met his grisly end, but what is rarely told - at least this side of the pond - is how the festival of Guy Fawkes night was continued across America and how, in Boston, it helped fuel the American Revolution. 

For British-Americans, the celebration of Pope's day was one that encapsulated their dual identities. A British patriotic holiday, it allowed Americans to celebrate their links with Britain and its monarchy through remembering the thwarting the gunpowder plot, yet by recasting Guy Fawkes Day as 'Pope's day' it also let them extend the anti-Catholic sentiment of the 5th of November celebrations to new heights. In Massachusetts especially, founded on anti-Catholosism from it's very beginning, the holiday became something that was more uniquely American. Through changing Guy Fawkes Day into Popes' day, they constructed their own identity and values.

In Newbury, Massachusetts, Pope's Day/Night was described:

“Young men, as well as boys,...constructed a huge vehicle, varying, at times, from twenty to forty feet long, eight or ten wide, and five or six high, from the lower to the upper platform, on the front of which, they erected a paper lantern, capacious enough to hold, in addition to the light, five or six persons.

“Behind that, as large as life, sat the mimic pope and several other personages, monks, friars, and so forth. Last, but not least, stood an image of what was designed to be a representation of old Nick [the Devil] himself, furnished with a pair of huge horns, holding in his hand a pitchfork, and otherwise accoutred, with all the frightful ugliness that their ingenuity could devise.”

 When night fell, the boys and men would build a bonfire for the effigies and burn them, and would put the money they had earned towards "a splendid supper".

 Upper class people complained of being accosted in the street, but on the whole it was a rowdy but joyful occasion, and an opportunity for the common public to have mischief and to display their loyalty to protestantism and - at least initially - to the crown.

The song touted at Pope's Day was very similar to that sung across the ocean in Britain:

Don't you remember
The fifth of November,

A Modern Pope's Day style celebration in Lewes

The gunpowder, treason and plot?
I see no reason
Why Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot. 

From Rome to Rome
The Pope is come
Amid ten thousand fears,
With firey serpents to be seen
At eyes, nose, mouth and ears.
Don't you hear my little bell
Go chink, chink, chink.
Please give me a little money
To buy my Pope some drink.



 By 1765 in Boston the annual Pope's Day had become altogether more anarchic and, when the unpopular Stamp Act raised it's head, the festival became a small but significant vehicle for American rebellion.

Boston could be a turbulent area and by the 1760s it had become infamous for its street gangs. The Northern and Southern parts of the towns were always at one another's throats and soon they locked upon Pope's day as a focus for their rivalry. Every year the gangs would set about trying to kidnap or destroy one another's effigies and come night time they would meet and brawl with one another to determine a victor. In 1764 the act drew plenty of unwanted attention when a 5 year old boy was killed as he fell under the wheels of the great effigy cart. By 1765 things grew more controversial when the whole festival gained a political overtone that fed the fires of anarchy in the gangs. But, instead of directing this rebellion against one another, they two gangs banded together to direct it against the focus of their grievance: the Stamp Act.

Isaac Wimslow Jr described this in his own journal:

On the anniversary of “Pope day” on the 5th of November, there had always existed a bitter rivalry between the South and North parts of the town, which party should capture and destroy each others Pope – the effigies of whom accompanied by others of the Devil and his Imps were carried about in procession on that day & he added by a distinguished fighting character from each Section – the Northern procession going to the South, and vice versa accompanied each other with a vast concourse of people – They usually met each other in or about Dock Square where the contest took place – These conflicts were very severe, but this year (1765) the popular leaders had excited in the minds of the people such a determined opposition to the Stamp act, that they succeeded in making peace, between the two parties who had before always been at swords points with each other.

 The stamp act  was an incredibly unpopular act that imposed a direct tax on the colonies of British America. This included a tax on many printed materials in the colonies that were made of stamped paper produced in London. These could be legal documents, playing cards, magazines, newspapers and more, and the demand was that these taxes could only be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money. The tax was to pay for British troops stationed in North America after the Seven Years War, but the Americans insisted that they had no need for such troops as they had no foreign enemies here and felt that they could protect themselves against Amerindians. The biggest slap in the face about the tax was that it violated their rights as Englishmen to be taxed without their consent. They could not vote on the tax and had no say in the matter.  Up until this point, Americans in general identified as Englishmen and were happy to be linked with the crown. But, it turned out, they were not respected as such and held very little legislative weight.They were increasingly exploited, and these grievances carried on and grew worse to the point where they inspired the American revolution. If they could not be respected as full blown Englishmen, then they would damn well make sure to be respected as Americans.

Back in Boston the gangs mobilised a protest together as one. By dawn, they had hung from 'the Liberty Tree' an effigy of Andrew Oliver, the British official appointed to oversee the Stamp Act in the colonies. Led by a man named Ebenezer Mackintosh, the gangs then gathered with the crowd and marched down to Kilby Street to ransack Andrew Oliver's near-completed office building, ripping up wooden planks to feed a bonfire. They went through the town, targeting the homes of customs officials, until they settled on Governor Thomas Hutchinson's mansion. They demanded that the family flee the house and, when they were gone, the riotors worked until  3am to destroy the house until little but a shell of the building was left.
While Mackintosh was inevitably arrested, the power and influence of the gangs was such that he was very quickly released again.

The rebellion continued. On the 17th of December, Mackintosh and his mob forcibly led Andrew Oliver to the 'Liberty Tree' and before 2,000 spectators Oliver - no doubt with his hanged effigy in his mind -  swore to take no further steps for enforcing the Stamp Act in America.
 There truly had been a shift in the American perspective: "The People, even to their lowest Ranks, have become more attentive to their liberties." Oliver himself bitterly observed.


Bonfire Night, and Pope's Day, have always been overtly political demonstrations, even if now they are somewhat forgotten under the spectacle of fireworks.

For America, Pope's Day (and Bonfire Night) faded into relative obscurity when the American Revolution truly took hold. As the colonies desperately needed the support of Catholic France, it was no longer politically correct to hold a festival that literally centred on burning the Pope and other Catholic martyrs. All the public's enthusiasm for fireworks and spectacle instead transferred onto the 4th of July: Independence day.

So when you next sit in front of a bonfire or fire up your V for Vendetta DVD, think about Guy Fawkes and Ebenezer Mackintosh, and just how important these sometimes anarchic public festivals can be for inspiring real-life political change throughout history.



Sources
-The 5th of November in Boston
-Popes Day
-Popes Day 1765
-How Boston's Street Gangs Sparked the American Revolution
- Daily Life Through American History in Primary Documents, Volume 1 edited by Randall M Miller
-Sparkler gif
-The Pope Bonfire effigy of the Lewes bonfire celebrations