Mistresses: Mrs. Dorothea Jordan & King William IV

By M.J. Neary They nicknamed him "Silly Billy". A more flattering nickname was "The Sailor King". Sandwiched between such iconic monarchs as George IV, whose extravagant lifestyle defined the aesthetics of the Regency Era, and his Queen Victoria, King William IV, former Duke of Clarence (1765-1837) easily gets lost. There is no label attached to his reign. One could call it either "post-Regency" or "pre-Victorian". That period is not covered in literature extensively. And yet, the time between 1830 and 1837 was a time of transition and transformation. The reforms put in place by William IV paved the road for Queen Victoria. He was the last king of the Hanoverian Dynasty and the oldest king to ascend the throne. It was a case of somewhat surprising late-in-life rise power. William IV; source - Wikimedia Commons William IV spent his early years in the Royal Navy, stationed in North America and the Caribbean. Apart from having a personal tutor present on board, William did not enjoy any privileges that would set him apart from the rest of the sailors. He did his share of heavy physical work. During the American War of Independence, he was stationed in New York. Allegedly, George Washington had attempted to kidnap him, knowing that the young man had a habit of walking out unescorted. Fortunately for William, the plot did not come to fruition. Decades later, William endeavored to repair the Anglo-American relations. His subsequent commanding officer, Horatio Nelson, praised him, "In his professional line, he is superior to two-thirds, I am sure, of the Naval list; and in attention to orders, and respect to his superior officer, I hardly know his equal." In 1789 William’s father, George III, made him Duke of Clarence and St. Andrews. Following an arm injury a year later, William was removed from active naval service. The Admiralty did not honor his requests for reinstatement. It must have been agonizing for William to stand on the sidelines during the Napoleonic Wars. Actress Dorothea Jordan: source - Wikimedia Commons Being the third son, William assuming that his chances of becoming a king were very slim, so he did not feel the pressure to get married and produce legitimate children. So he cohabited with an Irish-born actress whose stage name was Mrs. Dorothea Jordan (1761-1816) known for her long and gorgeous legs. She was a few years older than William and had a track record of love affairs with some pretty high-profile individuals that had resulted in three out-of-wedlock births, so she did not exactly fit the image of a seduced and discarded ingenue. Their affair lasted for twenty years and produced ten children, all of whom took the surname of FitzClarence - a homage to Dorothea's Irish roots combined with William's title as the Duke of Clarence. Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen: source: Wikimedia Commons His favorite daughter Sophia went on to marry Philip Sidney, a relative of the famous poet Percy Shelly. The rest of his daughters went on to marry lords and politicians. William and Dorothea enjoyed a surprisingly normal domestic life, but they ended up separating over financial disputes. Dorothea was given custody of her female children and a stipend on the condition that she would not return on stage. When she violated the stipulation and resumed acting in order to pay off some debt, William seized custody of the girls and withdrew his allowance. Dorothea ended up moving to France and dying in poverty - a distressing end for what had started as an illicit fairy-tale. After parting with his long-time mistress, William embarked on a wife-hunt. After several years of looking for a suitable candidate, he married a 25-year old Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, who welcomed his illegitimate children but could not produce an heir - her own children all died in infancy. One positive thing that came out of William's marriage to Adelaide was that he became frugal and disciplined, which worked in his favor when he became monarch. *This article is excerpted in part from the original post by M.J. Neary at: http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2016/06/king-william-iv-gap-monarch.html

The Art of the Decadents and the Bourgeois

 
By Laura Rahme

Francois Boucher’s The Chinese Garden

The downfall of the French monarchy during the Revolution of 1789 brought with it a new social order where art modes that were considered decadent and aristocratic were shunned.

Through Revolution, power and wealth flowed increasingly into the hands of the emerging bourgeoisie, a socio-economic group that had long aspired to the manner and graces of aristocrats, but who now sought to forge themselves a new identity, along with their own artistic sensibilities.

New styles emerged in dress, hairstyles, furniture, theatre and art.

Prior to the French Revolution, and ever since the reign of Louis XV, Rococo artists were the masters of the French art scene. This was to change.

Marie-Antoinette’s Art World

At the time of Queen Marie-Antoinette, before the French Revolution, paintings were lavish depictions of luxury, pleasure and the insouciance of a privileged class which did not reflect the majority of the population. Ordinary working class people were rarely subjects of these paintings.

Instead, aristocratic subjects are seen idling about in elaborate clothing without a care in the world. This was the time of Rococo art.

The Swing

Jean Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing (1767) denotes the carelessness and childishness of a young girl at play. Here, the aristocrats seem oblivious to the reality that the ordinary French person lives daily. This brand of art would have been odious to French revolutionaries given that as early as the 1780s, the price of bread was starting to rise due to poor crop yields, and the country’s debt was climbing.

The Lock

In The Lock (1777), Fragonard depicts a debauched noble class with perhaps a male making ready to corrupt his female companion despite her protests. The disordered bedroom and sheets allude to furious abandon, or even struggle, giving the onlooker a sense of forbidden erotic pleasures. This artistic style is in line with the libertine literature of the times, evoking themes from Le Marquis de Sade texts and Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the latter being hugely popular despite it being banned.

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour

In Francois Boucher’s portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1756), Louis XV’s chief mistress reclines on a sofa, dressed in a rich silk gown embroidered with flowers. Elaborate pink bows cascade down her corset, mirroring the perfect bow around her white neck. The great patroness of Rococo art appears regal and her encumbering court attire hints to her idleness and ease.

In the Rococo period, we also see decadence and immorality illustrated through Francois Boucher’ portraits. For example in his Brown Odalisque (1745), Boucher’s model is nude and tempts the onlooker with her exposed bottom.

Brown Odalisque

Boucher’s Léda et le Cygne (c.1740) dives with abandon into erotic perversion.  According to Greek mythology, Zeus transformed himself into a Swan to rape Leda. Yet the painting’s soft pastels and the lack of aggression implies yielding. Instead, the mood is languorous and Leda’s pose - lifting her dress - alludes to permissiveness.  

Leda and the Swan

Prior to the Revolution, almost all was permitted to aristocrats and they held rights over lower classes. In retrospect, the painting hints at the swan’s aristocratic embodiment with the rape of Leda recalling the suppression and abuse of the working classes who have no other choice. No wonder Boucher was in poor taste by the time the revolution began. Alas, despite his enormous talent, he remained unpopular for almost a century.

With these Rococo samples, it comes as no surprise that aristocrats were often seen as debauched and immoral. On several occasions, even Marie-Antoinette’s supposed sexual life and sensual pleasures were the subject of pamphlets and public scorn.

At the dawn of the French Republic, morality and discipline would need to be the focus of the new age if one were to distance oneself from aristocratic mores.  If a bourgeois wished to acquire symbols of stature, and ornaments for their home, they could not be seen as coveting the same frivolous art and perpetuating the same ideologies as aristocrats.

What style could a bourgeois possibly turn to?

Republican Scorn

With Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the French mentality impassioned itself with noble ideals and moral rectitude. People became ‘enlightened’ and suddenly the excesses of the old regime with its implied hierarchies and light-heartedness were frowned upon.

According to Gamboni¹, what irked revolutionaries was not so much the content of Ancient Regime paintings and images, but rather their symbolic representation.  While portraits of monarchs, members of the nobility and the Church were more directly attacked, any other work that these parties may have commissioned, possessed or displayed, were seen as symbolic of old power hierarchies and came under the revolution’s scorn.  Also to be wiped out or strictly discouraged were symbols of feudalism, superstition, toys and the ‘spoils of prejudice and arrogance’.

The terms pronounced when the city of Lyon’s buildings and monuments were destroyed leave no doubt as to the revolutionaries’ attitude: “In the name of the Sovereignty of the people…we strike with death this abode of crime whose royal magnificence was an insult to the poverty of the people and to the simplicity of republican morals.”

Discovery of Pompeii Ruins

In this sweeping social change, what, then, were accepted artistic symbols? What art forms were to be revered for their espousal of revolutionary values?

The answer to these questions were to be found in recent archaeological discoveries which had gradually brought upon an international change in the art scene.

That is, if a revolution had taken place in France, another revolution was burgeoning in the art world.

Earlier in the 18^th century, the ancient Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii had been discovered - in 1738 and 1748. These archaeological finds revealed gorgeous villas and a range of classical art from Greek vases to exquisite Roman murals. These discoveries newly inspired artists who began to experiment using Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece as models.

Europa riding the bull –
Fresco from Pompeii, 1^st Century AD

Antique style drawings, with their clean lines contrasted with the softness and airy touch of Rococo. The antique style was seen as representative of virtue while Rococo was coded as decadent.

Neo Classicism was born.

Juliette de Récamier’s Art World

Where Marie Antoinette had reigned supreme as Rococo graced French monuments and salons, after the French Revolution, it was the wealthy bourgeois socialite, Juliette Récamier, who became her Neoclassicism equivalent. 

Bust of Juliette Récamier -
Joseph Chinard, c.1801-2

A celebrity in her time, this wealthy banker’s wife heralded advances in furniture and dress style. Marie Antoinette had once commissioned Jean-Baptiste Pillement to decorate her Petit Trianon with his famed Chinoiserie style. No more. During the Neoclassicism period, socially accepted symbols included Ancient Egyptian lions and sphynxes, like those adorning the chairs owned by Juliette Récamier. The gracious hostess also owned an antique style bed with bronze-like ornaments and an x-shaped stool evoking Ancient Rome.

Styles in sculpture also reflected classical taste. In her time, Juliette Récamier was famed for her beauty and this marble bust depicts her as no less than the most gracious antiquity goddess.

Aside from being the subject of sculpture, Juliette Récamier also featured in a couple of paintings. One of these is her portrait by Jacques-Louis David, with a similar one painted by David’s pupil, Baron Gérard. In the latter, Juliette Récamier, the very spirit of Neoclassicism, is lying barefooted on an Etruscan chaise-longue, channelling the Greco-Roman vestal virgin with her simple white dress and up-styled hair.

Portrait of Juliette Récamier
by Baron Gérard (1802)

At the time, a journalist wrote, “Truth could go no further than this, she is so seductive to the eye and the imagination, that she gives off an impression of the ideal.”² [translated from French]

Years before, Jacques-Louis David had produced equally ‘classical’ portraits, including this one of Madame Henriette de Verninac (1799), daughter of a minister and wife of a diplomat.

Madame de Verninac

The pose is almost identical to the one adopted by Juliette Récamier. Individuality seemed less important with this art form which was synonymous with patriotism, self-sacrifice and nationalism.

Jacques-Louis David - Art Dictator

Ironically, before the French Revolution, Jacques-Louis David had once been taught by sensualist Francois Boucher, and upon leaving Paris to study in Rome, had once declared, "The art of antiquity will not seduce me, for it lacks liveliness.” But times being what they were, even artists did well to reinvent themselves, if only for survival. Or was it only survival?  

During the French Revolution, David had joined the extremist Jacobins.  He not only voted for the execution of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette but he lent his support to Robespierre during the Terror…as France’s art dictator. His subsequent abolition of France’s Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture was often interpreted as a reprisal for slights suffered in his youth.

Years later, under Napoleon, he would continue to direct his Neoclassicism talent into much propaganda.

Neoclassicism under Napoleon

Neoclassicism swelled to propagandist proportions during the First Empire, with Jacques-Louis David producing this well-known portrait of Napoleon crossing the Alps. The painting is marked by austerity and discipline, both hallmarks of Neoclassicism, while still associating grandeur and fearlessness with Napoleon.

Napoleon Crossing the St. Bernard Pass (1800)

In a similar vein, David’s Napoleon in his Salon (1812) confers authority and power to Napoleon. The winged head of mercury is a Greek symbol of wealth, while the lion is an Egyptian symbol of a king’s power. Both further illustrate the furniture style of that period.  Meanwhile Napoleon’s poised stance, his uniform and sword combine to portray a man in control.

Napoleon in his Salon 1812

The Decadents and the Bourgeois

As seen, the French Revolution saw dramatic socio-political changes which precipitated drastic transformations in the art world and in the consumption of art. While the ‘decadent’ aristocrat favoured Rococo, at the end of the Ancient Regime, Neoclassicism had risen in importance. Neoclassicism was seen as aligning with the ideologies of the French Republic and for this reason was embraced and even championed by the bourgeoisie. Far from being a passive decorative art form, Neoclassicism served as a tool for advancing the interests of the French Republic and later of Napoleon.

Sources:

1. The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution, Dario Gamboni, Reaktion Books, 1997.
2. Portrait de Juliette Recamier, Carnavalet Museum, http://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/en/collections/portrait-de-juliette-recamier-1777-1849, Accessed on 28 Jul 2016.
3. Neo-classicism & The French Revolution, Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/public/page/themes/neoclassicismandthefrenchrevolution, Accessed on 28 Jul 2016.
4. 18th- and 19th-Century France - Neoclassicism, National Gallery of Art, http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/features/slideshows/18th-and-19th-century-france-neoclassicism.html, Accessed on 28 Jul 2016.
5. Rococo - Wikipedia
6. Jacques Louis David - Wikipedia

All images from Wiki commons. 

The Intellectuals: Lalla Zaynab and Lalla N’Soumer - Indomitable Sufi Scholars

By Laura Rahme

“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”

– Rumi, Persian Sufi mystic.

Sufism in Algeria rose in importance during the 16^th century, under the Ottoman Empire.  One of the most powerful Sufism school of thought in Algeria is the Rahmanya. It emerged between the 12^th and 18^th centuries. It offered spiritual teaching and education, monetary assistance to its adherents, a refuge for the needy, and was instrumental in maintaining community cohesiveness and social integrity.

Lalla Zaynab was an erudite scholar from the Rahmanya order. It was believed that she possessed Baraka – a spiritual force flowing from God, giving her the ability to perform miracles. Born in 1850, this remarkable ascetic who had taken vows of celibacy, proved a veritable force against the schemes of the French colonists.

The Zawiya of El Hamel

Portrait: Lalla Fatma N'Soumer

Lalla Zaynab was the unique child of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abi al-Qasim who ran the Zawiya (lodge or monastery) of El Hamel. The zawiya played a key role in teaching the Quran, spreading Rahmanya teachings, feeding the poor, providing relief to flood victims and enabling scholars to occupy positions of great importance. Like many zawiyas in the country, which numbered 160000 by 1887, it helped preserve Algerian identity and cultural heritage. By 1890, there were several hundred students and scholars studying at the El Hamel zawiya at any given moment. It was visited by 7000-8000 pilgrims annually.

In addition to Islamic jurisprudence, Quran and Sufi doctrines, students learned chemistry, mathematics, astrology, astronomy and rhetoric. Shaykh Muhammad reminded the community that the pursuit of science was a duty of all Muslims, a belief which harked back to the medieval Islamic era.

While the French authorities were not known to praise Algerian Muslim leaders, Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim was often described as having “great intelligence, vast knowledge, and [being] pure of morals."

Nevertheless, the French were paranoid about any politically active Sufi brotherhood and their threat to the French empire. They closely monitored all Algerian leaders.

the zawiya of el hamel

A Female Scholar at the Head of the El Hamel Zawiya

Lalla Zaynab had lived secluded in the zawiya for years and as her father’s confidant, had a thorough understanding of its day to day operations. Well versed in all manuscripts and books of the zawiya library, she was the natural successor to her powerful father. But the local French authorities would not see this as beneficial. Their low regard for her gender led them to believe that as a woman, she would be more likely influenced by anti-French forces.

The French were keen to have the shaykh’s nephew, Sidi Mohamed, lead the zawiya. He was not only ambitious and of average intelligence, but also most devoted to French interests. On top of that, he spoke French! However, they also noted that unlike the virtuous and pious Zaynab, Sidi did not have the esteem of his local community, who considered him avaricious and attached to the things of life.

This did not deter the French. A few months before the Shaykh’s death, on 10 Mars 1897, Captain Crochard certified that he had received a letter from the Shaykh, confirming that he designated his nephew, Sidi Mohamed, as his successor.

Following the Shaykh’s death on 2 June 1897, Sidi Mohamed was eager to install himself in the shaykh apartments and inherit the immense fortune. No sooner did he arrive than he was met by the defiant Lalla Zaynab who, brandishing an official will drafted in 1887 declared that she was her father’s sole heir and that she did not acknowledge Sidi Mohammed’s moral and spiritual authority.

Lalla Zaynab met opposition from her cousin, who attempted to have her shut in the harem, but the community who loved her rose against him and his supporters. For the locals, while there was initial reticence as to whether Zaynab was the most befitting leader, it was not due to her gender. Instead, the people were anxious to know whether she, too, possessed her father’s Baraka. A voice apparition from the Shaykh declaring that his daughter had inherited his healing and supernatural powers had soon quashed any doubts.

The French Threaten Lalla Zaynab

Lalla Zaynab

Upon Lalla Zaynab’s triumph, Captain Crochard was out of his mind. He wrote, “this woman has destroyed everything I have put in place.” At this juncture, Commandant Fournier alerted the headquarters in Algiers, enquiring whether a military intervention might be needed to topple Lalla Zaynab and ensure Sidi Mohamed was made head of the zawiya in her place.

Eager to adopt more conciliatory measures, especially with a woman, Crochard attempted to speak with Lalla Zaynab in the hope of pressuring her to defer to her cousin, but she insisted that the letter Crochard held was a fake and wanted to hear none of it.

Crochard had run out of ideas. It seemed that only military force could achieve French interests.  

Would Lalla Zaynab and her community be forced to face the French army? And at what cost?

Consider here that the Shaykh’s fortune amounted to 2 500 000 francs which at the time was an enormous sum when in colonial Algiers, a labourer was paid an average of a mere 1.5 franc per day.

It would not be the first time that the French military would take on a zawiya. One had but to reflect on what had happened when they had first invaded Algeria…

The Joan of Arc of Algeria

From the time of the French arrival in Algeria, the zawiyas usually taught its students to struggle against French dominion.

Back in 1830, when confronted with the French invasion, the Ottoman Dey Hussein called upon the Rahmanya Shaykhs around the Kabylia area and Algiers, to defend the land from French colonial rulers.

At the time, the Rahmanya was led by a young Kabyle woman called Lalla N’Soumer. Born in the Djurdjura area of the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, this highly charismatic spiritual leader and scholar was soon to be referred to by the French as the “Joan of Arc of Djurdjura”.

Her real name was Fatma Sid Ahmed and she was known for her great scholarly gifts, wisdom and intelligence. In 1854, at barely 24, she rallied indigenous Kabyle people, leading an insurrection against the French troops, often throwing herself into the fray and combatting alongside the renowned freedom fighter Abd-el-Kader.

Lalla Fatma N'Soumer in battle

In all, Lalla N'Soumer led a formidable Rahmanya resistance against the French, heading an army of men and women and being successful during several battles including on 18 July 1854 when the French suffered heavy casualties. The French, led by Marshall Randon, asked for a cease-fire. But three years later, in 1857, having replenished and fortified their armies, they broke the cease-fire and again launched into battle. This time round Lalla N’Soumer’s armies were not victorious. 

Just as Joan of Arc had suffered a turn of fortune, Lalla N’Soumer was arrested and incarcerated. She died years later in prison at the age of 33. The French soldiers squandered the wealth of her zawiya and completely destroyed her library.

In fact, from the time of their arrival in Algeria, the French colonists had closed many zawiyas, burning books and manuscripts. French historian Alexis de Tocqueville said in 1847, "We dominated the land, changed its function, established charity centers, neglected schools, dispersed the zawiya...ignored religious men and judges of the law. In doing so we made Islamic society more miserable, and more ignorant, than when we first met."

Lalla Zaynab Takes on the French

If Lalla Zaynab was going to take on the French she would have to be more astute than Lalla N’Soumer.

Under pressure from Captain Crochard, Lalla Zaynab quickly understood that she could not survive a military intervention. Instead, and this is where her scholarly genius shone, she was going to fight the French using their own colonial law against them! She announced that she would press charges against Crochard and his superiors.

In August 1897, Lalla Zaynab met Maurice l’Admiral, an Afro-descendant lawyer from Guadeloupe known for his anti-colonial position and she proceeded to raise a case against the French military administration. Lalla Zaynab who spoke no word of French, instinctively understood how to use colonial law by drawing attention to the military administration’s failure to “respect the indigenous populations”. On top of that, she also had the genius idea of going further - she accused the French authorities of misogyny. Touché! French self-righteousness over its ‘better’ treatment of women was instantly placed into question.

Maurice ''Admiral illustration

Once Maurice l’Admiral began his independent judiciary intervention, the state of affairs underwent a transformation. Of particular concern was the bad publicity caused by French poor treatment of Muslim dignitaries. At the time, the French had commenced an international public relations campaign designed to convince Muslims in Morocco, Tunisia and elsewhere of the benefits of French rule. This case was detrimental to the desired image of French tolerance and benevolence.

In October 1897, Jules Cambon, governor general of Algeria was alerted by the authorities and told of Zaynab’s judicial case. Luckily for Lalla Zaynab, Jules was a man of culture, who later was to be elected at the French Academy. He was the first colonist to engage in dialogue with the order leaders and to show interest in Sufism. In no uncertain terms, he told Algiers Commandant Collet-Meygret that they had to renounce all military intervention against the El Hamel Zawiya.

The zawiya was saved.

Lalla Zaynab had used the pen instead of the sword and won.

For the following years the mystical scholar, Lalla Zaynab, ran the zawiya with authority and wisdom. She gave generously to the poor and the needy, continuing her father’s legacy. She was a revered figure for years to come. It is said that in her approach to confronting the French, Lalla Zaynab saw 70 years ahead of her time, what would become crucial to Algerian nationalism.

The Legacy of the Rahmanya

Today the Rahmanya legacy lives on and its teachings are more important than ever.

Established in 1990, the Rahmanya Association for Zawiya Scholarship emphasises spiritual education, efforts to preserve religious unity and avoid extremism and preservation of the Algerian Islamic identity.

Since 2001, an ordinance has asked for collaboration to protect the young from media influence and from religious extremism.

Sources:

Tariqah Rahmania: Its Roots and Prospects, by Kacimi El Hassani and Mohammed Raouf, The Journal of Sophia Asian Studies No. 27 (2009), Sophia University Repository for Academic Resources.

Lalla Fatma N'Soumer, Amazigh World, 20 April 2007, http://www.amazighworld.org/history/index_show.php?id=1828, Accessed on 28 Feb 2016.

À La Tête D’une Grande Zaouïa En 1897 Lalla Zineb, L’insoumise, by Benchenouf Djamaledine, 20 April 2013, http://dzactiviste.info/a-la-tete-dune-grande-zaouia-en-1897-lalla-zineb-linsoumise/, Accessed on 28 Feb 2016.

Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, by Edmund Burke and Nejde Yaghoubian, University of California Press, 2006.

Rebel and Saint - Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia 1800 – 1904), by Julia A. Clancy-Smith, University of California Press, 1994.

All images from Commons

Myth & Folklore: Lobisome, the Galician Werewolf

By Jessica Knauss 

Art by picsfair.com 

The werewolf is a manifestation of fear in folklore all over the world. Some scholars believe the werewolf legend got its start in proto–Indo-European times, when warriors wore the skins of their animal totems. Such intimacy with the spirit of the wolf leads me to believe that more than fear of the unknown, the werewolf represents the dread that comes from recognition. In ancient times, and in rural areas today, wolves come sneaking in the night to kill livestock or babies and often the only evidence of their presence is a corpse found in the morning. When our ancestors did catch sight of a wolf, it stirred something deep inside, making an eerie connection between human and wolf in spite of their eternal antagonism. Don’t we all have a little wolf in us?

If the werewolf is universal, what makes the lobisome, the Galician werewolf, special? Perhaps it’s that in Galicia, a werewolf ended up in court to answer for his crimes.

Shrouded in ancestral Celtic lore, Galicia in the northwest is the most mythic region of Spain. On a rocky, windswept coast, Galicia is pelted by rain that leaves tendrils of mist where liminal beings, neither man nor wolf, might jump out at any moment to seize a lonesome traveler.

Manuel Blanco Romasanta didn’t have to do any jumping. In 1852, he was accused of pretending to be a guide for several women and their children, sending letters to their families to let them know that the victims had reached their destination while in reality killing them and using their fat to make fine tallow soap.

Romasanta is not the only man to have been accused of the bizarre (yet plausible at the time) tallow soap accusation. He is, however, the only accused to admit to the crime and present lycanthropy as a defense.

A 2004 film dramatizing the Romasanta case.

Romasanta was Spain’s first serial killer on record, but the most interesting aspects of his case are the ones that have a mythical or folkloric feel. Just as a werewolf is neither man nor wolf, but both, Romasanta is said to have been raised as a girl until he was six years old. People perceived him as effeminate throughout his life, something his short stature (under 4' 11'') probably encouraged. He seems to have always lived in-between.

Werewolf folklore in Galicia specifies that the seventh child of any union is likely to be afflicted with a curse. If the child is a girl, she’s liable to become a witch; if a boy, a werewolf. The godfather may ward off the curse by saying certain prayers at the baptism. Generally the curse doesn’t manifest until later in life. An afflicted werewolf will feel compelled to undress at a crossroads and wallow in the mud. If a wolf has already wallowed there, the transformation occurs and the werewolf uncontrollably attacks and eats defenseless people and babies. The most reliable way to reverse the curse at this point is to take the discarded clothing and burn it. Given this preoccupation with clothes and how they show or conceal one’s identity, it’s interesting that Romasanta also worked as a tailor.

His case was brought to trial in Allariz in October 1852. Romasanta admitted to killing thirteen people while in wolf form with two other wolves. According to him, their first spree lasted five days, and when he returned to his human form, he was surprised to see that the other wolves were also men, both from Valencia.

When asked to undergo the transformation in court, Romasanta claimed that his curse had lasted thirteen years, and the time period was over just the previous week, so he could no longer transform at all.

A page from Romasanta's phrenology report,
courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The claims were believable enough that the court ordered an investigation. Using phrenology, court-appointed doctors concluded that Romasanta displayed no signs of lycanthropy and that his crimes were committed by choice. The court found Romasanta guilty of nine of the slayings to which he had confessed and sentenced him to death. A French hypnotist who had been following the case was convinced he could cure Romasanta, who was merely suffering from monomania. After a few unsuccessful appeals, the hypnotist obtained a royal commutation of the death sentence from Queen Isabel II so Romasanta could be studied.

Unfortunately, Romasanta’s psychology will always remain a mystery. He died only weeks after his sentence was commuted. Although his cause of death was likely stomach cancer, there was still enough belief in the possibility of werewolves that it was rumored Romasanta was shot by a guard who wanted to see him transform.

Having based his defense in a myth, Romasanta himself gave rise to a legend: the Sacaúntos, a boogeyman who murders children for their fat, has been scaring Galician kids into good behavior ever since.

Jessica Knauss earned her PhD in Medieval Spanish with a dissertation on the portrayal of Alfonso X’s laws in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which has been published as the five-star-rated Law and Order in Medieval Spain. A driven fiction writer, Jessica Knauss has edited many fine historical novels and is a bilingual freelance editor. Her historical novel, Seven NobleKnights, will be published in December 2020 by Encircle Publications. Find out more writing and bookish activities here. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter, too!