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Cannibalism in Europe

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Cannibalism in Lithuania in 1571, during the Livonian War

Acts of cannibalism in Europe seem to have been relatively prevalent in prehistory but also occurred repeatedly in later times, often motivated by hunger, hatred, or medical concerns.

Quotes

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Middle Ages

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  • Such suffering from hunger grew up around these cities that the Christians, in the face of the scarcity about which you have heard, did not fear to eat – wicked to say, much less to do – the bodies, cooked in fire, not only of the Saracens or Turks they had killed, but also of the dogs that they had caught.
  • About Perth, there was a countrie
    Sae waste, that wonder wes to see;
    For intill well-great space thereby,
    Wes nother house left, nor herb'ry.
    Of deer there was then sic foison
    That they wold near come to the town.
    Sae great default was near that stead
    That many were in hunger dead.
    A carle they said was near ther by,
    That wold set settis commonly,
    Children and women for to slay,
    And swains that he might over-ta:
    And ate them all that he get might:
    Chrysten Cleek till name be hight.
    That sa'ry life continued he,
    While waste but folk was the countrie.

18th century

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  • A collective insanity seemed to have seized the nation and turned them into something worse than beasts. The princess de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's intimate friend, was literally torn to pieces; her head, breasts, and pudenda were paraded on pikes before the windows of the Temple, where the royal family was imprisoned, while a man boasted drunkenly at a cafe that he had eaten the princess' heart, which he probably had.

19th century

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  • Excavations in the Chancelade quarries, where it will be remembered a landslip occurred last October burying a number of workmen, have been earned on ever since for the purpose of unearthing the bodies. For many days after the slip was believed to have been smothered, the workers smoke was seen to issue from the ruins. Soldiers and quarrymen, directed by a party of engineers, worked day and night in hopes of taking the men out alive. Ever since the work has proceeded, but of late the endeavors were not so vigorously plied. The diggers have now reached the actual spot where the men were engaged at the time of the accident, and on penetrating into a gallery cut in the stone the explorers discovered the body of a young man lying on the ground. Photographs taken of the position show that a dreadful state of affairs must have come about when the men uncrushed found themselves entombed. It appears undoubted that some of the men tried to prolong their lives by killing and eating their companions in misfortune. A few solitary arms and limbs have been picked up in their prison, and everything points to the fact that cannibalism was resorted to. The young man whose body was unmutilated seems to have survived the others, and to have died of hunger.
    • Cannibalism by entombed miners (Boulogne dispatch to the London Times).
    • Cited in Charles W. Darling, Anthropophagy (Utica, NY: T. J. Griffiths, 1886), p. 21

20th century

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  • Hunger turned some people into cannibals. This was a much more common phenomenon than historians have previously assumed. In the Bashkir region and on the steppelands around Pugachev and Buzuluk, where the famine crisis was at its worst, thousands of cases were reported. It is also clear that most of the cannibalism went unreported. One man, convicted of eating several children, confessed for example: "In our village everyone eats human flesh but they hide it. There are several cafeterias in the village – and all of them serve up young children." ... People ate their own relatives – often their young children, who were usually the first to die and whose flesh was particularly sweet ... Hunting and killing people for their flesh was also a common phenomenon. In the town of Pugachev it was dangerous for children to go out after dark since there were known to be bands of cannibals and traders who killed them to eat or sell their tender flesh.
  • It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The [rump] steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The [loin] roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable.
  • My passion is so great. I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever. There is no escape from this desire.

See also

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