Lore - Lore 240: Brick by Brick

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Lore 240: Brick by Brick People have a lot of fears. From spiders to the open sea, lots of things put us on edge. But few things are as downright terrifying as this particular circumstance…and it has for thousands or years. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing and research by GennaRose Nethercott and music by Chad Lawson.   Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com   Episode Sponsors: Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. Stamps: Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale at Stamps.com/LORE. To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.   ©2023 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Let's be honest, life is hectic. Between work and family and friends and chores, it can be hard to find time for yourself. We all find ourselves longing for peace and quiet from time to time, a moment alone with a book or a creative project or even just time to sit and think. And in November of 2021, one woman finally received just that, for 500 days, in a cave, 230 feet below ground. Fifty-year-old Beatrice Flamini is an extreme athlete from Spain.

She was participating in a research expedition called Time Cave, in collaboration with the University of Granada. The goal was to study how extended isolation and lack of sunlight might affect a person's experience of time, and to Flamini, the challenge sounded like just her cup of tea. After being lowered into the cave, Flamini spent the next year and a half alone, reading, weaving, exercising, drawing, and preparing meals, and what did she say when the scientist finally came to retrieve her on April 14th of 2023? I didn't want to come out yet," she said. Already? No way. I hadn't finished my book. Now if you're feeling your chest tighten at the very idea of this story, you aren't alone.

What was a dream come true to Beatriz Flamini would be for many of us, a nightmare. Clostrophobia is of course one of our oldest and most common human fears, and horror writers have made use of this for centuries. Like Edgar Ellen posed the casque of a Montiado. If you've ever read it, then no doubt the final horrifying image is burned permanently into your mind. A man deep in a catacombe, far from sympathetic ears, being bricked up alive against his will. It's a terrifying story, the kind that makes us shiver while reading it,

but thankfully it was only that. A story. But unfortunately that isn't exactly the case, because in merement, the act of sealing a living person into a wall or tomb is far from fictitious. In fact, it's a chilling fate that has befallen real victims throughout history, and it's time we unpack the truth behind the legend, one brick at a time. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is lore. The word immure is derived from the Latin words in and miris, meaning in or into and wall, pretty straightforward as far as etymology goes. But the practice itself is far less simple.

From a way to punish criminals to torturous political execution, to superstitious human sacrifice, a merement has been doled out for nearly as many reasons as there were victims. Take the ameerment of the Vestal Virgins, for example, which we've covered here before. As you recall, Vestal Virgins were in order of priestesses in ancient Rome who served Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, and a protector of Rome. These Vestal virgins were responsible for keeping the fire of the temple of Vesta perpetually burning. If it went out, it would be seriously bad news, because it meant that the goddess's protection of Rome would also snuff out. So suffice to say Vesta's priestesses couldn't afford distractions, and that's where the Virgin part came in. Part to tend to an eternal flame if you're busy

romping around with some handsome gladiators, right? And breaking that vow was more than just a sin. It was essentially treason since they were putting Rome itself in danger. It was sacrilegious, however, to kill a Vestal Virgin. To punish one who broke her vow of chastity, they had to find more creative methods. And what's the way to execute someone you aren't allowed to physically kill? That's right, emurement. Vestal Virgin's who broke their chastity vows would sometimes be sealed into tombs alive. That way no one had to execute them. Starvation or suffocation would take care of that,

and the state's hands would be clean. The victim would be stripped of her badges of office, dressed like a corpse, and led down into her vault while her sisters wept looking on. The tomb contained only a couch, a lamp, and a table with a small amount of food, which would obviously run out way too soon. I can only imagine the horror these priestesses must have felt, staring at the final bite of bread, that last handful of dried fruit, as the lamp light began to dim. There were about ten recorded cases of Vestel Virgin emirament, which, given the order existed for about a thousand years, is luckily a fairly low frequency.

But still, I can't help but feel like that's 10 too many. But Vestal Virgins worth the only religious figures in history to be punished that way. In 1409, for example, four Christian clerics in Ausburg, Bavaria were accused of pedophilia. First, the men were forced into wooden coffins and locked inside. Then the church suspended the coffins and locked inside. Then the church suspended the coffins with ropes inside a tall tower, where the clerics were left to starve. In another case, in the year 1149, Duke Otto III of Olomuts, part of the Moravian-Premish-Lid dynasty, claimed that an abbot had molested his wife,

so he did the only reasonable thing. He had the abbot and 20 other monks imured in the monastery refractory as punishment, where they all start to death. And of course, he seized the monastery's wealth too, you know, as punishment, which, yeah, does seem a bit suspicious in retrospect, but immeasurment wasn't just for punishing transgressions. It was also a means of political execution. In India in the year 1660, Shah Shoshah, the second son of an emperor, was on the run.

He ended up trying to overthrow the Iraqanese king. And let's just say that it didn't go over very well. Shah Shushah was killed, but the king didn't stop in his execution. He also killed all of Shah Shushah's children. The sons were beheaded, but the king didn't stop in his execution. He also killed all of Shoshu Shoshu's children. The sons were beheaded, but the daughters had it even worse. They were amured in their own apartments and left to die. And then there's Flavius Basilicus, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire from 475 to

476 CE. Once overthrown, he and his family were sealed up in either a sister or a tower, where they died of starvation and cold. And hey, remember our old friend Elizabeth Boutri, the serial killer who turned her lavish home into a tortured chamber for young women? She too was amired within her home, where she was supplied with food until she died four years later. Consider it an extreme version of House arrest. Sometimes though, the mirrorment wasn't about crime and punishment at all. In fact, in many instances throughout history, to be immured was quite the opposite.

It was considered holy. Take for instance the Children of Yuyayako. In 1999, archaeologists discovered three perfectly preserved ancient ink and mummies on the border of Chile and Argentina, sealed in a small tomb 1.5 meters underground. All three were children, and they appeared to have been human sacrifices. Examination of the remains revealed that the children were likely selected for sacrifice a year prior, being fed fine foods like maize and animal protein, as well as being heavily drugged before their sacrificial day.

Once the children had fallen asleep due to the alcohol and cacao they were fed, they were then sealed alive into a tomb within the Yuyayako volcano. And there they remained, for 500 years. Whether used for ritual or retribution, closing a person into their own grave, brick-by-brick sounds like a fate worse than death. It's honestly hard to imagine a crime worthy of that kind of punishment, but the thing is, sometimes emirment had nothing whatsoever to do with the person immured. Often it was less about the victim, and more about the vault.

There are all sorts of lucky charms out there, right? Rabbit's feet, forleaf clovers, human corpses, and if that last one seems out of place, well, it's actually not. It's pretty common. The practice has different names in different cultures. Da Xiong Shuiang in China, Hito Bashira in Japan, Miyosade in Burma. But it all refers to the same kind of thing, sealing a person inside a construction project, usually a bridge or a building to

make the structure stronger. Now if you're like me, you're asking yourself one simple question at this point, right? Why? What exactly does any of this achieve? Well, a number of things it turns out, sometimes human pillars, as they were called, were intended as sacrifices to the gods and spirits of the earth who were being disturbed in order to build the structure in question. In other cases, the spirits of the dead would become a phantom guardian protecting the structure from

harm. And oftentimes, it was both. One story from Humphie, India, tells of a wall with a history of falling down. So, a pregnant woman is buried beneath it to make sure that it would stay standing. To this day, the wall is sacred to women pilgrims. And then there is the Balkan Ballad, the bridge of Arta, which follows a group of mason's heart at work on building a bridge. They labor all day, only to watch the bridge collapse each night. One day, a talking bird comes to them, you know, as talking birds do, and proclaims that if you bury not a human being, no bridge can be strong. But not just any human being, the gods demanded the head Mason's wife, so the builders tell

the wife that her husband has dropped his ring into the foundation pit and asks her to go down and retrieve it. She dutifully descends, and then the mason's seal her in. This idea of closing your wife into a foundation is so common in fact that legendary folklorist Alan Dundee's even edited an entire book about it called The Walled Up Wife. In Japan, human pillars were common practice from ancient times through the 16th century. Japan's Maruoka Castle, Matsue Castle and Matsue Oshashi Bridge are all rumored to have been built with the help of human sacrifice.

Legend says when the Matsue Oshashi Bridge was being built in 1608, the builders grew more and more despairing because every time they tried to embed a pillar in the river, it was swallowed up by water and sediments. There seemed to be no solid ground to build on, and so they decided to try another approach. And that's right, a human pillar. The workers seized a man named Gensuke and buried him alive in the riverbed beneath the bridge's middle pillar. And how did poor Gensuke earn his fate, you might ask? Well by wearing his trousers wrong, yes you heard that right.

The builders had decided that the first man to cross without having his Haka Ma, a traditional kind of pants properly pleaded would be the chosen sacrifice. And Gensuke, well he'd left his house a little sloppy that morning, talk about fashion police, right? It's said that for centuries after ghostly red fire would flicker around the bridge on moonless nights. Yes, centuries, because after Gensuke's amurement, the bridge held firm. Okay, I'll admit, some believe that Gensuke is actually the name of an era, and not a man at all,

misinterpreted by dialect and time. But stories don't need to be true to hold power. The legend was so popular that whenever a new bridge was built, Townsfolk would flee the area in terror, afraid that they might be the next human pillar. Now, lest you think there's no room for fun in games when it comes to walling people up alive, fear not. While there is definitely debates on the topics some scholars believe that the popular children's song, London Bridge is falling down, is in fact about emuring a human sacrifice

in London Bridge itself. The bridge is even said to have been, and I quote, sanctified by the blood of children. It's hard to know for sure how many of these legends are true, after all many of the buildings are still standing, so whether or not they contain a body is unknown. That said, old buildings often need restoration, and when that happens, well, sometimes ghastly discoveries are made. Like the skeleton found in the wall of a parish church in Devon, England, when the building was restored in 1885, or the one found in Wickenby in Lincolnshire, buried in the foundation

of the West Wall. Over in Germany, the castle of Niedermandrschied was said to have been built around a young woman. In 1844, they decided to find out once and for all if it was true, so they broke open the wall where the legend claimed that she had been immured. And sure enough, there was a skeleton there. And look, people of our time aren't the only ones to see this practice as barbaric. Past peoples also recognized that a merement wasn't necessarily ideal. So sometimes, standins were used.

Effigies or dolls were embedded in foundations, often resembling a specific person. Animal sacrifice was even used. But my personal favorite? Shadows. That's right. Sometimes rather than a mere a person, builders in Greece and what is today Transylvania among others would simply emure the person's shadow. First of the shadow would be measured, then the shadow's owner would stand so that the shadow fell upon the foundation's stone, sometimes even being nailed in place, then it would be sealed into the wall. It seems like a good compromise, except for one teeny side effect. Anyone who shadow was a mirrored would die within 40 days. We don't know a lot about Julian of Norwich.

We don't know who her parents were or the circumstances in which she was raised. We don't know her birthday. We don't even know her real name. Julian simply being the name of the church, Saint Julian, with which she came to be associated. What we do know is that on May 13th of 1373, when Julian of Norwich was 30 years old, she just so happened to be... Dine. She was sick and bedridden, plagued with strange dreams and pain, and she knew her time on earth was limited. First, she went numb from the waist down, next the numbness crept up to her neck, her breath grew short, and then, just as death felt nearest, her pain disappeared.

as death felt nearest. Her pain disappeared. That's when she received 16 divine visions from God. She saw God hand her a small object the size of a walnut, and when she asked what it was, he said it was all things. She was struck by the fragility of this, the universe in her palm. She saw Christ in his crown of thorns. So plentiously, she would later write, the hot blood ran out that there was neither seen skin nor wound, but as it were all blood. Her visions were horrific and overwhelming, but while they terrified her, they also filled her with an immense sense of God's love.

And once the revelations finally ended, she miraculously survived her illness, and she decided to dedicate the rest of her life to being an anchoress. What exactly is an anchoress? Well, let's just say that not all emirment was involuntary. Anchoresses were women who consented to be walled up within a cell for an ascetic life of spiritual contemplation.

And when I say walled up, I mean, immured. They would be bricked into a cell with no way out. But the intent wasn't to kill or starve them. Rather, the anchoresses would be past food and water to survive while they lived hermetic, simple lives of prayer. The cells were attached to the church itself, so the immured were permanent residents of the church. An anchoress's cell was no more than 12 feet square, usually closer to 8 feet square. While there were no doors, the cell would have three small windows. One window opened to a parlor, allowing servants to deliver food and supplies, as well as ferry wasteouts. Another tiny window opened into the church so that the anchoress could observe the services

and take the Eucharist, and one, open to the outside world. None of them, however, were large enough for a person to pass through. Once sealed in, they would never leave again. Inside the cell, one might find a small table, and a chimney for heat. There was also a pit dug into the ground. This pit was where the Anchorus would kneel each day in prayer, and eventually, that pit would become her grave.

In fact, when an anchoress was first sealed into her cell, a priest recited prayers typically reserved for funerals, symbolizing that the ascetic was now dead to the outside world. Now anchoresses weren't all women. Their male equivalents were called anchorites, but it was far more common for women to volunteer to be recluses than for men to. In fact, twice as many women than men were amirred in the 14th and 15th centuries, and three times as many in the 13th century. And I know what you're thinking.

There can't have been that many of them because who on earth would volunteer for this? But actually, in the medieval medieval age it was pretty popular. In England between the 13th and 15th centuries there were a good 200 anchorises in anchorites actively living in cells. It seems like Beatrice Flamini, that Spanish athlete who spent 500 days in a cave, wasn't the first woman to seal herself behind Stone to get some peace and quiet. Anchoruses could have visitors, though, and in fact, church members would often go to them for advice and wisdom. Imagine it like a confessional booth, but one where the priest could never leave.

Frequent visitors were discouraged, but you could have a chat every now and then. Of course, Anchoruses could never have visitors within their cells, but most portraits of Julian of Norwich do portray her with a companion. Right there in her lap, it was a cat, probably just small enough to slip in and out of the windows. Who knew that the ultimate cat lady was a medieval woman, living behind a wall? An Ancherous' day consisted mostly of prayer. She also did handy work making lace or working with metals,

or as in the case of Julian of Norwich, writing one of the greatest works of mystic literature the English-speaking world has ever known. Not long after receiving her visions, she wrote a book referred to as the short text of the revelations of divine love. Later in her cell she wrote an extended exploration of the visions, called The Long Text of the Revelations of Divine Love. We don't know exactly how long after having these visions that Julian of Norwich became an anchoress, but we do know that she remained immured for more than 20 years, well into her 70s. The results, however, had one revolutionary after effect. Her revelations of divine love volumes were the first books ever written in English by a woman. The fear of small spaces is very real and very common. I myself have a deep fear of tiny enclosed places that make me feel trapped, and whenever

I've brought it up in conversation, it always elicits nods of agreement from everyone else in the room. It's not universal, but it certainly covers the majority of us, doesn't it? But there's always a twist, right? Yes, for some emirament was a horrific form of torture, to be feared and fled from. For others, a necessary evil to appease the gods, and for others still it was a path into a holy life of prayer, solitude, and community power. Any ritual it seems can be wielded for punishment or peace, depending on its application.

And sometimes, it was both. Remember how we said that Julian of Norwich was often depicted with a cat? Well despite the discouragement of frequent visitors, more permanent companions for anchoresses weren't of hurt of, but the thing is they weren't always cats. In fact, they weren't always animals at all. Some were children. Historical records show instances in which parents would donate a child under the age of 10 to the church. It was a devotional act, the ultimate sacrifice to prove their love of God, and sometimes to relieve themselves

of one more mouth to feed while they're at it, and the child they knew would never go hungry because it would be cared for by the church. Of course, when I say cared for, what I mean is that the child would be walled in with an anchoress to keep her company, and there the two companions would remain, one by choice, and the other by force, snug within a cell for decades. Here at Lore, we love a full circle moment. There's nothing more satisfying than a story that can be tied up with a neat little bow, and in our research on emirment, we happen to stumble onto just that.

But to prove it, we have to return to the beginning, with another look at the cask of a Montiato. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode of lore was made possible by Stamps.com. I am a tool guy. I love finding specific tools that help me get the job done better. And with the approaching holiday season, you can be sure I'll be adding more tools to my wish list.

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holiday season. Sign up with promo code lore for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage, and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com. Click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter the code, lore. Stamps.com. Never go to the post office. Again, this episode was also made possible by Squarespace. It is natural to want to show off the creative things that you make. I know that all the talented folks who work with me over at Grimm

and Mile are proud of all the shows they held build, and they deserve a showcase for all that hard work that's just as amazing. And for that, I turn to Squarespace. Why? Because Squarespace has everything I needed to build the perfect website. Their new asset library feature lets me save all the necessary images like the cover art for all my shows, and have them available across the Squarespace platform. Their fluid engine is the easiest way to build a website, hands down. Start with a

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This episode of lore was made possible by Audible. This is probably not going to surprise any of you, but I greatly prefer to listen to stories as it really lets you immerse yourself in what you're listening to. Even when I'm doing things like working out or painting minis for D&D, I'm listening to something entertaining or informative,

which is why I've been an Audible customer for years. Audible lets you play all your audio entertainment in one app, whether you're binging both seasons of my hit fiction podcast Bridgewater or wanting to grab that new thriller you've had your eyes on, Audible has it all. In fact, Audible has thousands of titles across every genre, from mysteries and thrillers, to historical deep dives, and celebrity memoirs. And as an Audible member, you can choose one title each month from their catalog, including best sellers and new releases.

And those titles are yours to keep. Members also get full access to a growing selection of audible originals. Audiobooks and podcasts that you can download or stream all you want. And you can do it all through the audible app. Anytime, anywhere. Last month, I listened to Chuck Wendig's latest spooky release, Black River Orchard. And friends, it was absolutely incredible, so do check it out.

What are you waiting for? New members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com-thrush-lor or text-lor to 500-500. That's audible.com-thrush-lor. Ed Garellen posed short story, The Cask of a Matiado, didn't come from nowhere. And I don't just mean the long history that we've just explored. No, I'm talking about something specific, because in fact the casque of Amatillado was likely based, unfortunately, on a true story. In 1844, Reverend Joel Taylor Headley, a contemporary of pose and a famed writer in his own right,

was on a trip to Italy. Headley and a friend were wandering the small town of San Giovanni, in what I imagine was an afternoon of fine food, warm weather, and lively conversation. At some point though the two companions decided to pay a visit to the church of San Lorenzo, there in the town. Headly was a reverend after all, and probably wanted to spend a few moments in prayer. But when they entered the church, a place that should have been holy, the men were both horrified and mesmerized to discover an example not of God's love, but of human cruelty. Receiving a tour of the space, the

men were shown an open hole in the wall, covered only by a thin trap door. Behind the trap door, stood an upright human skeleton. Apparently, the skeleton had been discovered there within the wall a number of years earlier, during some construction work on the church. After finding it, the clergy had for whatever reason, decided to leave it in place pristine and undisturbed. Not your typical choice for interior decorating, but hey, who am I to judge? The image of that walled-in man stuck with headly, haunting him long after he'd returned to America.

And as a writer, Reverend Headley processed what he'd after he'd returned to America. And as a writer Reverend Headley processed what he'd seen in the only way he knew how, by writing, later that same year he published a letter in the Columbia magazine which he titled, A Sketch, A Man Built Into A Wall. Though the actual history of this poor victim was unknown, Headley's letter was full of lively speculation. In a dark night, Headley wrote, the workmen began at the feet, and with his mortar and trowel built up the same carelessness he would exhibit in filling any broken wall. The successful enemy stood leaning on his sword, and watched the face of the man he hated, but no longer feared, at length the solid wall rose over his chest.

So like Poe's story, this featured an Italian man, emirred as an act of revenge. In both, the men in question were of high rank, and looking at the language of the letter next to the casque of a matiato descriptions feel eerily similar. As the final stone is sealed into place in Headley's writing, for example, the victim lets out a groan, in Poe's version, a low, desperate laugh. But is it all coincidental? How do we know that Poe would never have seen this letter? Well, the issue of the Colombian magazine where the letter appeared happens to be the very same one that contained Poe's article on Mesmeric Revelation. In fact, Poe even mailed a copy of the issue to a few of his friends.

And hey, sure, it's possible that he missed it at the time. But the letter just so happened to be published again in 1845 in the New York evening mirror. And we know that Poe read the mirror, especially in 1845, because that same year he trusted the mirror to publish a work of his own, a work that had never been released before, a little poem called The Raven. It seems that truth really is stranger than fiction, and while Headley's letter has been

largely forgotten, Poe's story sure hasn't. Thanks to him, one unidentified man who met a grizzly end in a small Italian town has, for lack of a better term, forever been cemented in history. This episode of lore was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research and writing by Jenna Rose Nethercott, and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video.

Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. Information about all of that and more is available over at lorepodcast.com. You can also follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Just search for lorepodcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.