The Horrible Demise Of Count Leudast

Leudast was a 6th-century count who was active in the politics of the fragmented Merovingian Empire. Born to humble beginnings, Leudast managed to come to prominence in the court of King Charibert (r. 561-567). After Charibert’s death, Leudast threw his support behind his late liege’s brother, King Chilperic (r. 561-584). As could be expected, Chilperic rewarded Leudast for his political and military aid, naming the man Count of Tours. Yet, Leudast’s lifestyle of paranoia and corruption eventually turned public opinion against him. A breaking point apparently occurred around 580, when Leudast was removed from his position as count.  Instead of receiving the demotion gracefully, Leudast tried to regain leverage by accusing Bishop Gregory of Tours of slandering Chilperic’s wife, Queen Fredegund. In a trial attended by King Chilperic and a panel of other bishops, Gregory of Tours was found not guilty, and the court instead declared that Leudast, himself, had been the originator of the rumors against the queen. By this point, however, the disgraced former count had already fled, so the court had to make their charges against him in absentia. The king declared Leudast an outlaw and sent troops to hunt him down, while the bishops excommunicated him from the church and forbid him from receiving the eucharist. Queen Fredegund would also punish Leudast in her own way.

Around 583 or early 584, Leudast decided to stop running from the law. He returned to Tours, awkwardly bringing himself back into contact with Bishop Gregory, and he asked to be allowed to live in the city once more (as his wife was there) and to be readmitted to the church. Bishop Gregory, understandably not fond of the man, refused to allow Leudast any access to his wife or Holy Communion until express written permission to do so was given to him by Queen Fredegund. After hearing this answer, Leudast apparently decided on an action that surprised Gregory. The conflicted bishop reportedly even advised against the former count’s decision once he heard it—Leudast wanted to go directly to the king and queen to plead for forgiveness.

Set on his course, Leudast set out from Tours and tracked down King Chilperic in Melun. The king received him peaceably, but, like Bishop Gregory of Tours, Chilperic would not come to a decision without hearing what his wife, Fredegund, had to say about the matter. On that note, Chilperic invited Leudast to accompany him back to Paris, where Fredegund was residing. Sensing a glimmer of hope, the disgraced count accepted the deal and joined Chilperic on his trip to Paris.

Leudast’s hopes, whatever they might have been, were crushed in Paris. When Fredegund and Leudast finally met, she refused to forgive the former count, and pressured Chilperic not to forgive him, either. The King gave Leudast his protection for a while as he deliberated, allowing the man in question to roam free in Paris until the final decision was made. Nevertheless, King Chilperic ultimately gave way to his wife’s wishes and allowed her to do with Leudast as she wished. Given free rein in the matter, Fredegund had troops sent to arrest the former count. Leudast was reportedly browsing the shops and markets of Paris when Fredegund’s enforcers began encircling him, armed with weapons and chains. The former count, however, noticed these advancing troops and decided to make a final stand. Bishop Gregory of Tours described the grisly scene that ensued:

“Leudast drew his sword and hit one of them. Thereupon the others were roused to fury. They seized their own swords and their shields, and made a concerted attack upon him. One of them struck him on the head, cutting away most of his hair and scalp. He started to run across the city bridge, but he caught his foot between two of the planks of which the bridge is constructed and broke his leg” (History of the Franks, VI.32).

Even with a broken leg and a scalped head, Leudast’s torments did not end. After being given enough medical treatment to keep him alive, poor Leudast was handed over to the royal couple’s torturers. Gregory of Tours did not elaborate on which afflictions Leudast was exposed to, but Chilperic and Fredegund had a vast arsenal of grisly devices and techniques. The bishop did, however, claim to know how Leudast ultimately died, and he described it in unsympathetic detail, saying, “At the personal command of the Queen he was placed flat on his back on the ground, a block of wood was wedged behind his neck and they beat him on the throat with another piece of wood until he died” (History of the Franks, VI.32).

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Public Domain scene depicting  Syagrius brought before Clovis of the Franks in 487AD, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, translated by Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin Classics, 1971.

The Horror Stories Of Duke Rauching And The Sad Tale Of His Runaway Servants

Duke Rauching was a leading Frankish nobleman of the 6th century who lived and died by the courtly intrigue of the Merovingian era. He was reportedly the type of noble who would thwart an assassination attempt against a king, only to organize his own plot against that very same king at a later point—something he unsuccessfully attempted to do with King Childebert II (r. 575-595). Yet, Duke Rauching was a man of his time, and, although he was no saint, many of the other nobles and kings of his day were equally as bloodstained. Nevertheless, the duke had the misfortune of leaving an extremely bad impression on Bishop Gregory of Tours (c. 539-594), whose History of the Franks is the main source for 6th-century Frankish history. Gregory of Tours painted Duke Rauching as a villain among villains, and if Gregory’s reports were not exaggerated, then the duke must have been a vindictive, sadistic killer. Yet, as with Emperor Caligula, it is difficult to distinguish the difference between truth, exaggeration, and falsehood when it comes to Duke Rauching.

Gregory of Tours introduced Duke Rauching into his historical narrative as he described events around 575—a year when King Sigebert was assassinated during a civil war against his brother, King Chilperic, and a rebel army marched on Chilperic’s capital, Soissons. The rebellion was crushed and the rebel leader mysteriously died. Duke Rauching’s first recorded act in Gregory’s History was to marry the rebel’s widow.

After bringing Duke Rauching into the scope of the history, Gregory of Tours digressed into several tales about the duke’s abnormal sadistic depravity. According to Gregory, “his savage brutality went far beyond the bonds of human cruelty and folly” (History of the Franks, Book V, section 3). The list of horrible rumors descends further and further into barbarism as Gregory of Tours progresses with his story. First, Duke Rauching was accused of the stereotypical nobleman’s fault of treating his servants as if they were less than human. The next rumor, however, was dramatically more horrific. Gregory wrote, “Whenever, as the custom is, a serf stood before him with a lighted candle as he ate his meal, Rauching would make him bare his shins and grasp the candle between them until it burned out; and when a new candle was lighted, Rauching would repeat the trick, until the serf’s legs were completely scorched” (HF, 5.3). To emphasize the point that the duke was completely insane, Gregory added the line, “Rauching would be convulsed with merriment to watch the man weep” (HF, 5.3). The next tale presented by Gregory featured two servants who ran away from Duke Rauching. Like the serfs with the candles, the runaways would not be shown any mercy by the duke.

As the story goes, a charming tale of romantic love played out on Duke Rauching’s estate—one of the duke’s servants fell in love with one of the duke’s maids. The two lovebirds enjoyed their secret affair on the duke’s estate for over two years, at which point the couple decided to bring their relationship to the next level. They ran away from Duke Rauching and fled to a local church, where they were married by an understanding priest. In addition to performing the ceremony, the priest also gave the couple a place where they could live in secrecy and peace.

Duke Rauching, however, quickly discovered that two of his servants were missing, and he followed their trail to the local church. The duke must have also known that the priest was hiding the couple, for he demanded that they be retrieved. Yet, Rauching also tried to calm the clergyman by saying that he forgave the love-stricken pair and simply wanted them to return to his estate—no punishment, no burning of shins with candles. The priest, however, was not completely convinced and wanted the duke to swear before God that the newlyweds would not be separated. According to Gregory of Tours, Duke Rauching responded with the carefully crafted words, “I will never separate them. On the contrary I will make only too sure that they remain closely united” (HF, 5.3).

The duke’s slippery speech unfortunately fooled the priest. When the clergyman subsequently visited the newlyweds and delivered to them the duke’s words, they too were won over by the promise and agreed to return to the duke’s estate. With normalcy resumed, the priest in his church, and the newlyweds on the road, all were oblivious of what the future had in store—yet Duke Rauching (according to Gregory) had been planning his revenge ever since he formulated his loophole-riddled vow to God.

When the runaway lovers arrived at the duke’s estate, Rauching had them detained or distracted while he prepared their elaborate punishment. Gregory of Tours described the preparation and execution of the duke’s horrific plan in great detail:

“He [Rauching] immediately ordered his men to cut down a tree and then had a portion of the trunk split by wedges and hollowed out. Then he had a hole dug three or four feet deep in the earth and the hollowed-out tree trunk placed in it. He put the girl inside, as if she were already a corpse, had the young man thrown on top of her, fixed a lid over them and filed the grave with earth, burying them both alive” (HF, 5.3).

After a while, news of the duke’s latest villainous deed became the talk of the town and the hoodwinked priest finally learned the fate of the newlyweds. The brave clergyman reportedly sprinted to the estate of the duke, where he “upbraided Rauching bitterly” (HF, 5.3). After an epic bout of moral and theological debate, the priest convinced the duke to exhume the hollowed-out log. Nevertheless, the priest had not been quick enough. The male servant was pulled out of the grave alive, but his bride, on whom he had been tossed, was beyond help and already succumbed to suffocation.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Scene of French noblemen and clergy from page 80 of “The Story History of France” (1919), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, translated by Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin Classics, 1971.
   

Torture in the Spanish Civil War

(Soldiers on their way to the front during the Spanish Civil War, c. 1936-1939, [Pubic Domain] via Creative Commons and Flickr)

A Horrid War

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was an astoundingly brutal war. Fueled by a frenzied hate between opposite political spheres, the civil war was filled with torture, executions and all sorts of ugly atrocities on both sides of the conflict. For those who have not studied the Spanish Civil War, here is a brief description of the sides involved in the conflict. The war began when a large conservative contingent of the Spanish military (eventually led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco) rebelled against the left-wing government of the Second Spanish Republic. To the confusion of many readers from the United States, historians often label the supporters of the left-wing government in the war as ‘Republicans’ and Franco’s forces are often called the ‘Rebels’ or the ‘Nationalists.’

While hardly any war can be called pleasant to study, the Spanish Civil War is an especially discouraging topic. Some historians and statisticians propose that around the same number of people died off the battlefield as those who fell on the war front. Possibly 200,000 deaths were caused by regular warfare, and another 200,000 caused by execution, terror and reprisals. While unimaginable violence, murder and post-mortem mutilation was prevalent in the Spanish Civil War (again, on both sides) this short article will focus on another gruesome topic—torture.

The first problem posed by this undertaking is how to define torture. That is a question still very much in debate, today. For the purpose of this article, an act will be labeled as ‘torture’ when violence and pain was inflicted on a victim with an intention of not merely causing punishment or death, but of a prolonged, unjustifiable suffering, both physically and mentally. Fair warning: some of the acts described below will likely be disturbing. They will escalate from the least gruesome to the most horrific, some ending in a slow, drawn-out death.

Humiliation and Beatings

Franco’s forces had a standard torture that was used prevalently throughout the war—victims were forced to drink castor oil (often mixed with sawdust or dry crumbs) to cause severe abdominal pain. After the victims drank the oil, they were usually beaten, shot, or both. Another common torture used by Franco’s troops involved shaving women’s heads, sometimes leaving only a tuft on which they would tie a ribbon. Many of these women would also be forcibly separated from their children—a simple, but extremely effective torture.

Sexual and Psychological Torture

In Republican territory, religion came under heavy attack. Priests and military officers were frequent victims of torture and execution. Monks and priests were often stripped naked and paraded around, or driven through rough and jagged terrain. There are many accounts of priests being tortured through mutilation and castration of the genitals. Nuns, for the most part, were spared horrific death—but that did not mean they were safe. There were multiple (but fairly rare) accounts of nuns being sexually tortured, raped and murdered. In one of the worst incidents, five nuns were attacked in Riudarenes village, Girona. Three other holy women suffered at Peralto de la Sal in 1936.

Franco’s soldiers surpassed the Republicans in rape. There are accounts of captured women being locked in rooms with twenty-to-fifty hardened, merciless soldiers who had lost any sense of morality in Spain’s brutal colonial wars in Morocco. John T. Whitaker recorded one soldier’s observation after two captured women were handed over to around 40 soldiers from Morocco: “Oh, they’ll not live more than four hours” (Whitaker, We Cannot Escape History). The soldiers also seemed to use some intense psychological torture, as there are reports of victims being driven to commit suicide.

Dismemberment And Graves

The Republicans, too, would inflict psychological terror on their victims. There are accounts of prisoners being forced to dig their own graves, after which they would be killed with their own pickaxes or shovels. The Republican executioner, Santiago Aliques Bermúdez, is known to have used this particular method of execution. There was also at least one account of nuns being dismembered, and priests, as said earlier, often were put under the knife, with the extreme being the amputation of their genitalia and the possibly of decapitation.

Franco’s troops matched the Republicans here, too. In one instance, a military chaplain named Juan Galán Bermejo captured five people (one was a woman) in a cave. Convinced they were Republicans, the chaplain—who was a deputy priest of the Church of La Candelaria—had his captives dig their own graves. When the graves were dug, he shot them and buried his victims while they were still alive. As for dismemberment, the execution of Juan Sosa Hormigo in January of 1937 demonstrates the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. He had basically been drawn and quartered—his arms and legs had been ripped from his body.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Sources:

• The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain by Paul Preston. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.  
• Franco: A Personal and Political Biography by Stanley Payne and Jesús Palacios. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014.