Sometimes months, maybe even years, go by without my discovering that one of those things I accepted on blind faith was wrong. Recently, I had the mind-boggling experience of having it happen twice in two days!
Now, before I tell you what they were, let me just say in my own feeble defense that I’d never given much thought to either. Still, it’s rather discombobulating to find that something you had always accepted as a given is simply untrue. I mean, imagine the shock to your system if you woke up tomorrow to find that Ted Kennedy has never had a drink in his life or that Hillary Clinton really can’t turn water into ice by merely sticking her finger in the glass.
The first item deals with Mexico’s Aztec population. I had always accepted the notion that they were a gentle, peaceful people who were ravaged by the evil Spaniards. It now turns out that the Aztecs weren’t exactly the innocent children of nature that I had pictured. Based on new-found evidence, it seems that they captured a caravan of conquistadores, which included children, and not satisfied with simply killing them, kept them imprisoned in cages for months, selecting a few each day to have their hearts cut out and offered up to their various gods. Based on gnawed bones, it’s apparent that these gentle souls then cannibalized their captives.
The other eye-opener for me was the Magna Charta. I don’t even recall why I decided to check into it, but believe me, I wasn’t prepared for what I found.
I was aware, as the Aztecs might have said, of the bare bones of the story. On June 15th, 1215, at Runnymede, King John was forced to cede much of his power to a group of barons and earls. Because we have all heard that the historical document planted the seeds of trial by jury, due process, habeas corpus, and equality under the law, I assumed it read like the blue print for our own Declaration of Independence.
There are, however, a few items among the Charta’s 63 chapters that I, at least, had never heard about. For instance, a widow couldn’t re-marry without the consent of these assorted noblemen.
Earls and barons could not be fined except by other earls and barons.
Putting women in their place, it stated: “No man shall be apprehended or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman, for the death of any other man than her husband.” If I read that correctly, it meant that a woman could not accuse a man of murdering her father, her brother or even her son.
Putting Jews in their place, it stated: “If anyone shall die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and shall pay nothing of that debt.”
So even though a woman couldn’t re-marry without the say-so of a bunch of strangers and couldn’t have her child’s killer arrested, even she could lord it over the Jews.
As chartas go, I’d have to say this one wasn’t so darn magna.
