Friday, 16 October 2020

Matthias Buchinger: The Crippled Entertainer

Welcome to my latest post in my series on disability as entertainment. This week I will be looking at the German performer, Matthias Buchinger.

Who was he?

Matthias Buchinger (1674-1740), was a man of many talents. He was a performer, artist, musician, and calligrapher. Born in Ansbach, Germany, his parents tried to keep him hidden. The reason for this was that he was born without arms, legs, or thighs and was only 29 inches tall. It is believed he had phocomelia, which causes arms and legs to malform. Buchinger decided to head out onto the streets to perform, starting in Germany, but he became popular right across Europe. He travelled to many countries including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Britain, and Ireland. He even performed for various royal families. He was a very active man, marrying a Dane as the first of his four wives. He is also known to have produced fourteen children by numerous women. Several dozen women claimed to have carried his child, but none of these claims can be substantiated. Buchinger even had a poem published in an English broadside entitled “A Poem on Mathew Buckinger: The Greatest German Living” in 1726. The Greatest German Living is a rather impressive compliment!

In 1714, George, Elector of Hanover, became George I of Great Britain. As the new king was German, Buchinger felt that he would fit in rather nicely at court and would gain the favour of George I. However, this was not the case. Instead, the king simply paid Buchinger twenty guineas to leave him alone. Buchinger was therefore left with no option but to continue displaying himself in public and headed to Ireland. He performed in Dublin, Belfast, and Cork. He died in Cork in 1739, but insisted that his friend from Dublin, Francis Smith, acquire his body to prevent it from being put on display as a curiosity.

What were his Abilities?

Ok. So, he was a disabled performer who was popular in many European countries, but what did his acts entail? What could a man with no hands or feet possibly do to captivate an audience? Well, it turns out that he could do quite a few things. He was quite good at magic for instance. In Temple Bar, Dublin, in 1720, he performed cup and ball tricks. A Trinity College student commented that ‘From what was but a lifeless ball before, at his command, a living bird will soar.’ I must confess that I know very little about magic. I assume that slight of hand tricks are difficult to pull off, even more so when you don’t actually have hands! I wonder when they were referring to Buchinger, was it slight of stump.

It was not just his arms that he was quick at moving. Another onlooker stated that ‘He twists himself about the floor with considerable agility, raising one side a little & turning on the other as on a pivot.’ It is clear that Buchinger could do amazing things with his body. He could also perform a trick involving nine pin bowling. He would place a glass of liquid on top of a skittle and knock the skittle over without spilling any of the liquid. He also could play several different musical instruments. If you think that is impressive, wait until you hear this. He was able to load and fire a gun. That’s right! The man without any hands was able to load and fire a lethal weapon. I think it is fair to say that his impairments did not hinder his performances.

The Lord's Prayer engraved in Buchinger's wig

Calligraphy

I have decided to leave Matthias Buchinger best skill till last. You see, he was amazing at calligraphy, particularly micrography. Possibly the best example of this is a self-portrait of his (shown above). The drawing itself is pretty good, but it is only when you look closely at his wig that you realise how skillful he truly was. The curls of the wig are actually words and when they are strung together, they make up seven complete psalms and the Lord’s Prayer. He used the same micrography skills while working on a portrait of Queen Anne, as well as a family tree. Nobody has been able to work out how he achieved this feat. Not only because he had just a thumb-like nob on one arm to work with, but witnesses state that he never used a magnifying glass in the process. This boggles the mind, as the writing is so small, most people require a magnifying glass to read it.

Matthias Buchinger came back into the public’s imagination in 2016, when the New York Metropolitan Museum ran the exhibition ‘Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger's Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay’. Ricky Jay was an excellent slight of hand magician and actor. He had spent time studying Buchinger and published the book Matthias Buchinger - 'The Greatest German Living' in 2016.

Matthias Buchinger was an incredibly talented man, regardless of his disability. If you want to learn more about him, I highly recommend the BBC podcast episode listed in the Further Reading below.

To keep up to date with my latest blog posts, you can like my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter. You can find them by clicking the relevant icons in the sidebar.

Next week, I will start to delve into the world of the freak show.

The Wheelchair Historian

Further Reading

b01smkq3 Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Bunbury, Turtle, ‘MATTHIAS BUCHINGER (1674-1739) – THE GREATEST GERMAN LIVING’ http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_heroes/hist_hero_buchinger.html Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Jay, Ricky, ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’, June 1, 2009 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/opinion/02jay.html Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Johnson, Ken, "Astounding Feats in Pen, Ink and Magnifying Glass" The New York Times (January 14, 2016). https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/arts/design/astounding-feats-in-pen-ink-and-magnifying-glass.html Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Library Ireland, ‘Matthew Buckinger’, from the Dublin Penny Journal, Volume 1, Number 44, April 27, 1833, https://www.libraryireland.com/articles/BuchingerDPJ1-44/index.php Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Mittman, Asa Simon, ‘Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger's Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay’ (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8 January-11 April 2016). Exhibition publication Ricky Jay, Matthias Buchinger: ‘The Greatest German Living’. Los Angeles: Siglio, 2016.

Sadlier, Thomas Ulick: ‘An eighteenth century dwarf’. Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society, v.X (1922-8), p.49-60, http://archive.irishnewsarchive.com/olive/apa/KCL.Edu/#panel=document Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Schjeldahl, Peter, ‘Seeing and Believing: the mysteries of Matthias Buchinger’, The New Yorker, January 18, 2016 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/seeing-and-believing-the-art-world-peter-schjhl Accessed: 16 October 2020.

Friday, 9 October 2020

Disability as Entertainment: Roman Slaves

Welcome to my latest blog post on disability as entertainment. Following on from last weeks post on disability in the Roman arena, I will be examining what life was like for disabled Roman slaves. Well technically, they weren’t actually Roman citizens as they were slaves, but that is just a minor detail.

Romans preferred Cripples?

It is a well-known fact that Roman citizens owned slaves. As bizarre as it seems to us today, possessing slaves was perfectly normal and even expected in Ancient Rome. This ranged from a typical household having one or two, to wealthier Romans having a Downtown Abbey style army of servants. The Romans were so effective at enslaving others, that some have estimated that slaves outnumbered freemen three to one. Understandably, the Roman elite were always worried about slave revolts. This may be one of the reasons why the Romans preferred disabled slaves. It was probably easier to escape an attacker with one leg, for instance.

Deformed slaves were a common sight in Rome. This is due in part to the fact that slaves undertook intensive labour and were often put in dangerous situations, resulting in injury. However, this is not the only way Romans acquired deformed slaves. Quintilian, a Roman educator, and rhetorician stated that ‘some people set a higher value on human bodies which are crippled or somehow deformed than on those which have lost none of the blessing of normality’. It is clear from this that disabled slaves were a sought-after commodity. So much so, that Plutarch records the existence of a ‘monster-market’ in the city. He describes all of the weird and wonderful things that could be purchased there. These include people ‘who have no calves, or are waeselarmed, or have three eyes, or ostrich-heads’. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I have ever come across a person with an ostrich head. It seems a tad bit unrealistic, but fascinating, nonetheless. These ‘Commingled’ shapes and ‘misformed’ prodigies as Plutarch calls them, were put on display to be gawked at and examined by the public.

It was not only people with pre-existing deformities that were popular with the Romans. Some people even disfigured their slaves to increase their value. I know what you are probably thinking, why on earth would disfiguring someone increase their value? To answer that question, we have to leave reality and enter the realm of the supernatural [insert spooky ghost noises here]. As with most things in daily Roman life, the gods and spirits played a key role. The Romans believed in the Evil Eye of Envy. It was thought that this could have serious effects on the person the Eye set its gaze on. In order to combat this, the Romans used deformed people. The deformity acted to draw the attention of the Eye, thus protecting the original target. The hump on a hunchback was deemed to be the most effective at this. Hence why hunchbacks were commonplace in the imperial court. So, there you have it, instead of using Evil Eye necklaces and bracelets, which is common today, Romans used disabled people!!

Terracotta dancing dwarf, late 3rd century B.C.E., Rhode Island School of Design, Museum. Providence, Rhode Island. Garland (1995) figure 6.

Dwarf Clowns

Dwarfs were popular entertainers in Rome and not only as gladiators as I mentioned last week. Usually, dwarf slaves would be made to perform if their master had guests over. This could take the form of singing, or dancing, or just making a fool out of themselves. In short, they were clowns. The satirist Lucian tells of an incident involving such a clown named Satyrion. Satyrion ‘danced, doubling himself up and twisting himself about to cut a more ridiculous figure’. He was clearly intending to make his master’s guests laugh. After this, ‘he began to poke fun at the guests’. Unfortunately for Satyrion, one of them, named Alcidamas, took offence and challenged him to a fight. Being a slave, Satyrion could not refuse and therefore the fight began. Lucian remarks how ‘It was delicious to see a philosopher squaring off at a clown, and giving and receiving blows in turn’. The difference in height certainly would have made an interesting spectacle. The fact that Satyrion actually won the fight makes the event even funnier for those that witnessed it.

Satyrion is not the only example of when a deformed slave was humiliated for entertainment purposes. The Historia Augusta, which is a collection of biographies of the Roman emperors, includes a misdeed of Commodus (yes him again). In my last post, I mentioned how he caved in the skulls of some cripples with a club. This time he was said to have ‘displayed two misshapen hunchbacks on a silver platter after smearing them with mustard, and then straightway advanced and enriched them’. It makes it seem as though the hunchbacks were just a plaything. At least he paid them. That’s a positive, I suppose. Stories such as this indicate that owners of disabled slaves received the most from them, by humiliating them for entertainment.

As you can see, disabled slaves in Ancient Rome were highly prized possessions, but they were humiliated for entertainment.

To keep up to date with my latest blog posts, you can like my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter. You can find them by clicking the relevant icons in the sidebar.

Next week I will be looking into the intriguing tale of Matthias Buchinger, the deformed entertainer.

The Wheelchair Historian

Further Reading

Brignell, Victoria, ‘Ancient world’, 7 April 2008 https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/crips-column/2008/04/disabled-slaves-child-roman Accessed: 9^th October, 2020.

Facts and Details, ‘Slaves In Ancient Rome: Numbers, Sources And Laws’, Last updated October 2018 http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub369/entry-6302.html Accessed: 9^th October, 2020.

Garland, Robert, 1995. The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (London).

Lampridius, Aelius, Historia Augusta, Commodus. Translated by David Magie (January 1921), 7.11.2.

Lucian, The Carousal (Symposium) or The Lapiths Translated by A. M. Harmon (January 1913), 18.

Malamud, Martha, “That’s Entertainment! Dining With Domitian in the Silvae.” Ramus 30.1 (2001), 23-45.

Plutarch, ‘On Being a Busybody’ in Moralia, Volume VI Translated by W. C. Helmbold (January 1939), 520 C p. 501.

Quintilian, ‘The Orator’s Education’ in The Orator's Education, Volume I: Books 1-2, edited and translated by Donald A. Russell (January 2002) 2.5. 11-12.

Spectacular Antiquity, ‘Dwarfs in the Roman Arena’, https://spectacularantiquity.wordpress.com/case-studies/public/dwarfs-in-the-arena/ Accessed: 9^th October 2020.