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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCastrati - another Christian crime no one talks about
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2009/11/natures_rejects.htmlFrom the 16th to the 19th centuries, tens of thousands of male children were castrated before puberty to preserve their high voices, then subjected to a brutal and relentless program of vocal training. The first instruction, wrote an observer, "was inseparable from the whip." As in all eras of musical education, the result was a few idolized stars like the celebrated Farinelli; a steady supply of well-trained singers for church, court, and opera; and myriad also-rans and nobodies. In this case, particularly tragic nobodies.
These nobodies sang for pennies in the streets, turned to prostitution for male customers, and sooner or later disappeared into the oblivion of the outcast. A great many ended up suicides. As for the public, mingled with their admiration for the famous castrati was disgust and scorn. Names for them included "geldings, eunuchs, capons … nature's rejects, nullities of known creation." To have gone under the knife, never by your own choice, meant only one career path. By law and by custom you were forbidden to take Church orders or serve in government or military. Needless to say, you never had a family. As a castrato you were a singer, or you were nothing.
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samsingh
(17,598 posts)the religion has evolved.
Miigwech
(3,741 posts)The last Castrate lived into the early 20th century. You can get a recording of his voice, I have a CD ..... a haunting voice. What about the genocide, committed 150 years ago, against Native Americans? Christianity is a brutal religion and many right wing evangelical Christians would gladly stone to death homosexuals in the public square today, if they could change the laws to allow it. So don't fool yourself into believing that any religion is benign ...
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)the separation of races using Bible verses regarding tribes. US slavery was justified in the same manner. That was not 100 years ago.
Telcontar
(660 posts)Folks can dicker about the "true causes" of the War of Norther Aggression, but for the average Soldier in blue, it was his Christian duty to preserve the Union and Free the Enslaved.
So. How does that fold into the narrative?
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)of the Christian religion. How people think all of Christianity is somehow washed in Teflon blood is ridiculous. The majority of all religions have some parts that are extreme. It is immediately assumed, when extremism in Christianity is mentioned, that all of Christianity is somehow impuned.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Reprehensible Christians used their belief to justify the KKK, while admirable Christians were behind many of the efforts to fight for Civil Rights.
However, they were both Christians.
Sid
Stargazer99
(2,585 posts)WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)In fact, Bolling says, no one of any religion besides Islam has committed atrocities in its name. The host ended Saturday’s Cashin’ In by making the following assertion:
“Reports say radical Muslim jihadists killed thousands of people in the past few months alone. And yet when you take Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, whatever, their combined killings in the name of religion––well, that would be zero.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)so these deaths are due to satan worship, not Christianity...doncha know?
Wasn't it Hannity who also said anything Obama promotes is something Hannity will oppose?
Or was that the Onion?
840high
(17,196 posts)
edgineered
(2,101 posts)odds are on the apologists taking race wire to wire
edgineered
(2,101 posts)Apologists were quick out of the gate and going into the first turn, however several were quickly shuffled to the outside. exiting the first turn the apologists have grouped together and are attempting to close the gap with a show of faith.
kimbutgar
(21,153 posts)It was such a sad story. I couldn't put the books down. Another monsterous act done in the name of Christianity.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)which of her books was our favorite.
djean111
(14,255 posts)
Runningdawg
(4,516 posts)It is her best work.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)
LuvNewcastle
(16,846 posts)I recommend it to people if we're talking about church abuse. Most people don't even know anything about the castrated singers. Anne Rice gives a wonderful description of what it might have been like.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)in order to increase our Western moral confusion and further isolate, divide, and intellectually neuter us.
"We are Nihilists!" 
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)We are doing many of the same things we condemn in others, it's a confusing world.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)and then dumped gravel over his charred body while he was still living. Can you remind me? Or are you too confused?
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)This picture got my attention some years ago because the young lady strongly resembles my daughter, it was taken at Abu Ghraib, the gentleman on ice had been tortured to death.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)I thought Islamic State was the only thing "worth" getting outraged about.
At least they don't look much like my kids so there's that.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)as the "Christians are JUST AS BAD" meme has been raging for some time.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The OP probably has something to do with responding to this sort of thinking..
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/foxs-bolling-zero-people-have-been-killed
whathehell
(29,067 posts)but in my seven years here, I haven't noticed Fox being a "go to" place for DUers on ANY subject, have you? 
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)whathehell
(29,067 posts)e.g. "Christians are perfect and have always been so", except
when it comes to "Christians", it seems.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Stuff that people already know is posted here all the time without others becoming upset about it.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)why bother?
If Fox is such a discredited news source (and it is) why would you
accept their views as "real" let alone get all worked up about them?
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)whathehell
(29,067 posts)ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)pictures people post here.
but they feel differently. and I don't see that as a big problem.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)it was implied by the comparison, and I'm glad you don't
see "that as a big problem", but as I said, they're different subjects,
and attempts to minimize the relentless rants here against one religion,
by comparing that to cat videos isn't going to work with me, sorry.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)In fact I know people who listen to nothing but Fox and their ideological clones and will happily repeat everything that they hear there.
Who says I'm worked up? I'm doing what I normally do, posting to an online discussion forum, my topics may change but I post quite a bit, it's more entertaining to me than watching Fox or anything else on TV.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)as you did here on the subject of Christians, and THAT, of course,
is the point, one you are avoiding, as you know it can't be defended.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)whathehell
(29,067 posts)Still have that "separation of church and state" thing going on, and thank, um, Hank for it.
MADem
(135,425 posts)I don't know a soul who has done such a terrible thing.
Collective guilt is tiresome.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)In fact I suspect it's a small minority doing those things.
And yet people seem to have no problem painting every single one of them with what the worst do.
I remember the CNN coverage of the first Gulf War, there were bars full of people cheering every bomb falling on Baghdad as they were shown on the big video screens. Iraq had done nothing to America or Americans and yet there were millions of Americans eager to see the blood of Iraqis spilled in large quantities. Not even the fig leaf of 9/11 existed at that time to excuse the savagery.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Millions. So this is the stupid games we play?
Everyone in the past was horrible.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Get people to stop saying things like that and maybe others will stop talking about what Christians have done, until then expect push back on stupidity like that.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Are there filks out there that deny historical crimes by almost everyone everywhere? That is the human condition.
And it will never end.
Cheers!
whathehell
(29,067 posts)People in the past GENERALLY were not always lovely.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Women, but Du does not care about that. Heck, the architect of the Syrian civil war, Bush buddy Bandar bin Sultan, is the child of an African slave and his horrible father the King.
But, you know, we suck too.
I was going to point out that there is still slavery currently in SA, among other practices not compatible with Western secular democracies.
But I get so TIRED 
And then, we do SUCK too. Sooooo I just gotta say...
whathehell
(29,067 posts)although I didn't know that about Bandar.
Yes, it is imperative to remember that we suck too, although I doubt
anyone could POSSIBLY forget on DU.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)fact destroyed the most secular and non-slaver muslim regimes in the Middle east.
Gee, politics are confusing.
mwrguy
(3,245 posts)They have captured and sold thousands of women.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Young women of different tribes and faiths as sex slaves.
outside
(70 posts)They spend 95% of their time looking backwards. I don't know if we can ever start over.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)They were also the highest paid Opera singers and they were the Rock Stars of their day. I read Anne Rice's book.
Anyone who wants to be a professional Opera singer, musician, dancer, artist trains brutally and relentlessly. Some people consider the rewards worth the sacrifices.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)You think the kids were asked what their wishes were in the matter?
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Which is what I asked about.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)And when you have similarly spent hours over 2 decades informing yourself about conditions in which the vast majority lived in the Medieval and Renaissance periods, I'd be happy to have a lovely exchange with you about it. A Master's in Music degree would be a plus. Let me know when you are prepared.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)If you choose not to share it then of course that is your prerogative.
Widget2000
(32 posts)You brought up an Anne Rice book as somehow dismissive of the argument that castrating young boys is abusive. Then, when asked for more info, you merely say "go read the book"? This is NOT an argument.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)so as not to be accused later of child abuse by DUers living 700 years later who know nothing of the reality of life in our era.
Widget2000
(32 posts)Continue campaign of coverups, denials, victim-shaming, and moving pedo priests around....for 700 years going strong.
On edit: are you one of those people that denies shit like slavery's lasting imprint on our current social and economic infrastructure? If not, you'd realize it's the same game here. The Catholic Church has a LOT to apologize for, and should be making amends. You might not care about castrated choir boys, but surely you realize the parallels in the abuse scandals that continue? Surely?
Miigwech
(3,741 posts)Most Castrate were sold to the Catholic church by poor peasants that had a large family already and could give away a son to the church. Most of these boys ended up as house boys for the church officials ... one can only imagine what they were used for? The church gave it's blessing to those families and the poor boy was castrated , total child abuse.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)whathehell
(29,067 posts)It doesn't take long to catch on to this stupid game, does it? 
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts) MADem
(135,425 posts)A little guilt for EVERYONE--see, EVERYONE is BAD, so if ANYONE is bad, we're supposed to not care very much.
Or something.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)
Brother Buzz
(36,436 posts)
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)
rug
(82,333 posts)This recording is amazing. So strange, his voice. Described as the voice of a woman but with more power and deeper range of soprano.
TuxedoKat
(3,818 posts)I knew this recording existed but this is the first time I heard him. I wonder what his life was like. Have to do some research.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)And I thought Alanis Morisette's voice was grating. I guess you had to be there.
Warpy
(111,264 posts)There were girls and women with voices that far surpassed those of little boys but who were not considered to be anything but receptacles for male "seed" with no abilities, thoughts, or rights of their own. Certainly such creatures wouldn't ever be allowed near an altar or choir loft!
They even today prefer choirs of little boys, allowing girls and women in only when the little boys left in the parish who can sing are too few to make up any sort of a choir.
Yes, the castrati were the result of a massive crime by the church. That crime was the symptom of an even greater crime that continues today, the absolute refusal to see half the human race as human.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Medieval monasteries for women had choirs, so you're wrong about the Church not allowing women to sing in the mass.
As for mixed voice choirs, I don't want to go searching for historical sources, but I'm not making outrageous claims about music history, and I hold a Master's in Music from ASU.
Published Italian Madrigals from 1556 were written for mixed (male and female) voices because the texts required it, this does not exclude mixed choirs from earlier periods - there were surely unpublished madrigals using female singers.
Boys choirs are a delight, and as a female singer since childhood, personally I adore hearing boys choirs. They have a particular timbre which is vocally very pure. The fact that boy's choirs exist does not damn the Church or Western Church composers as misogynists.
Catholic churches in the USA today do not discriminate against girls or females in their choirs.
If you think that today's Christian churches don't recognize the humanity of women, you're wrong.
If you want to argue that there is no difference between the West and Islam, don't be ridiculously wrong about historical facts to the point where I have to shame and ridicule you because stoopid like yours must be pulled up from the roots and destroyed.
Unless of course you can link to responsible academic sources to back up your claims that women never been allowed to sing in church.
Warpy
(111,264 posts)The rest of your post is one straw man after another. Have fun playing with them.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Miigwech
(3,741 posts)V. The singers
12. With the exception of the melodies proper to the celebrant at the altar and to the ministers, which must be always sung in Gregorian Chant, and without accompaniment of the organ, all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir of levites, and, therefore, singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir. Hence the music rendered by them must, at least for the greater part, retain the character of choral music.
By this it is not to be understood that solos are entirely excluded. But solo singing should never predominate to such an extent as to have the greater part of the liturgical chant executed in that manner; the solo phrase should have the character or hint of a melodic projection (spunto), and be strictly bound up with the rest of the choral composition.
13. On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.
14. Finally, only men of known piety and probity of life are to be admitted to form part of the choir of a church, and these men should by their modest and devout bearing during the liturgical functions show that they are worthy of the holy office they exercise. It will also be fitting that singers while singing in church wear the ecclesiastical habit and surplice, and that they be hidden behind gratings when the choir is excessively open to the public gaze.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States#Women
Unless you really have never heard of the Vatican II reforms of 1962, like I never got the memo that I gained the right to vote sometime in the 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council
Unlike previous councils, it was unique as it did not issue any new dogmas, declare any anathemas, or settle any grave heresies prevailing at the time. Instead, the council became known for its renewal of Catholic doctrine in a modern timeline and perspective.
greatlaurel
(2,004 posts)Thank you.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)It's so obvious that the church has been an oppressive and brutal presence in the lives of millions of women for centuries. And women are still held in utter disdain by the RCC.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)History has only a small sampling of the atrocities committed against other sentient creatures, by the hands of other sentient creatures.
dilby
(2,273 posts)The church was not castrating boys and castration was just as popular for those who were secular singers as those that sang in churches if not more you got paid huge sums to be an opera singer while the church paid shit. This was a cultural problem not a religious one.
Miigwech
(3,741 posts)about these crimes ... and maybe you will not say it is BS. Ten's of thousands of boy's castrated for no other purpose then to sing in the papal choirs for the pope or wealthy families? Poor families, over burdened with many children, sold these boys to the church - no the church didn't castrate the boys, the local barber did. It happened ... and these boys are thrown into the dustbin of history just like many who suffered and die because of Christianity.
dilby
(2,273 posts)This is something that carried over, thus it was cultural. Women were not singing before the Church was in power and men were getting their balls cut for singing purposes when they were worshiping the Roman gods.
Miigwech
(3,741 posts)Pope urged to apologise for Vatican castrations
Rory Carroll in Rome
@rorycarroll72
Tuesday 14 August 2001 05.06 EDT
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Revelations that the Vatican encouraged the castration of choir boys in the name of art for hundreds of years have prompted calls for a papal apology.
Human rights groups, historians and Italian commentators said the Pope, a singer himself, should ask forgiveness for his predecessors' role in the mutilation of castrati singers.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/aug/14/humanities.highereducation
New research suggests that the employment of castrati was tolerated by the Vatican as late as 1959, long after other states had banned it as barbaric.
From the 16th century onwards generations of Italian boys were castrated in the hope that their voices, prevented from breaking, would combine a child's high register with the vocal power of a man.
Their ability to sing beyond normal human limits enraptured opera-goers, emperors and popes, who commissioned a choir of castrati to perform in the Sistine chapel. An edict by St Paul prevented women singing in church.
Successful castrati such as Farinelli - the subject of Gérard Corbiau's 1994 film - became Europe-wide superstars, feted by composers such as Handel, but most failed to make the grade and were cast aside, devastated and useless even as circus freaks.
According to Angels Against their Will, a new book by the German historian Hubert Ortkemper, the castrato Alessandro Moreschi performed in the Sistine chapel until 1913. Other historians suspect that Domenico Mancini, another private pontifical singer who performed from 1939 to 1959, was a castrato, too.
Officially the Vatican always condemned the practice, which is thought to have started around 1500, and punished castrators with excommunication. In 1902 it issued a decree banning castrati from the Sistine chapel.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)However, how do you know that women weren't singing in public in the Roman era? Just because there were castrati in this time, doesn't mean that women weren't also singing in public. Just as today there are countertenors and female sopranos.
Women were fairly independent in the Roman culture. What would have prevented them from performing? I'm not an antiquities specialist, but I do know that Roman society had little to nothing in common with the civilizations that followed it.
dilby
(2,273 posts)Women in Ancient times were still pretty much property. Women were not given educations (unless from a wealthy family and the family wanted to do it), did not participate in politics, they did not participate in sports, they did not own businesses. It's not like Christianity took power in the 5th century and put women into the dark ages, women were already living in the dark ages. There were exceptions in ancient times, if you were the wife, daughter or mother of an Emperor, influential politician or hero then you got some leeway but for the most part women in Ancient Rome were just like women in the middle ages.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)As is the case with male members of society, elite women and their politically significant deeds eclipse those of lower status in the historical record. Inscriptions and especially epitaphs document the names of a wide range of women throughout the Roman Empire, but often tell little else about them. Some vivid snapshots of daily life are preserved in Latin literary genres such as comedy, satire, and poetry, particularly the poems of Catullus and Ovid, which offer glimpses of women in Roman dining rooms and boudoirs, at sporting and theatrical events, shopping, putting on makeup, practicing magic, worrying about pregnancy — all, however, through male eyes.[6] The published letters of Cicero, for instance, reveal informally how the self-proclaimed great man interacted on the domestic front with his wife Terentia and daughter Tullia, as his speeches demonstrate through disparagement the various ways Roman women could enjoy a free-spirited sexual and social life.[7]
The one major public role reserved solely for women was in the sphere of religion: the priestly office of the Vestals. Freed of any obligation to marry or have children, the Vestals devoted themselves to the study and correct observance of rituals which were deemed necessary for the security and survival of Rome but which could not be performed by the male colleges of priests.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Rome
And of course, we're only talking about the elites. People didn't document the lives of the working classes of either sex.
dilby
(2,273 posts)Or the mothers or daughters of powerful men, women did not inherit power naturally, they obtained it due to their relations with powerful men.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)So you've added nothing to the discussion.
Priestesses weren't married - check the last paragraph of the Wiki, if you even bothered to read it.
dilby
(2,273 posts)Women married to prominent men during the Christian middle ages had all the luxuries of women in Ancient Rome, nothing changed due to religion it was totally cultural.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)"The practice reached its peak in 17th and 18th century opera. In Naples it is said that several barbershops had a sign that castration was performed there. However, this cannot be confirmed. The male heroic lead would often be written for a castrato singer (in the operas of Handel for example). When such operas are performed today, a woman (possibly cross-dressing as a man in a so-called trouser role) or a countertenor takes these roles. However, some Baroque operas with parts for castrati are so complex and difficult that they cannot be performed today."
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Castrati performed in the 17th and 18th centuries, we know this.
Women performed on stage for Mozart, and in Madrigals. We know this.
An educated medieval woman learned music along with other subjects, so why would she be forbidden to perform at court? I can't say, but I will question someone who says women were forbidden to sing, because its wrong, a rewriting of European history to serve a political agenda.
In Christian church services, at least in Women's monasteries, women were singing in public at least as far back as 1100.
There is nothing that makes a castrati a more accomplished singer than a women. There are many reasons for baroque operas to not be performed today, usually because they are boring for modern audiences. I can't agree on the last line about them being too difficult. I have an academic disagreement.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)They got out of the bizarre child rearing practices, why, just the other day, right?
Widget2000
(32 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Women are even considered fully human, and have been given the church's blessing to regain autonomy over their own bodies. Same with the gays! ...
Oh, wait ...
Glengoolie
(39 posts)My group of the desert tribal God adherants are not as wackadoodle as your version of desert tribal god adherants.
Evil and sick but not as evil and sick as those guys over there!
Religion, all of it, continues to hold humanity back...
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)I have never created one before, and I assure you I will go on not creating Castrati; that said, I understand that as a Christian I am obviously guilty for actions done more than a century before I was born. I don't think anybody here would disagree with that.
Bryant
RedCappedBandit
(5,514 posts)The fact that other religions also have and had their own atrocities to deal with doesn't have any impact on whether or not there is a problem in the Muslim world.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)aspect of human history. The Ottomans used castrated slaves in huge numbers, they were Muslims. This practice is older than any of our current religions, and there is no place on Earth that has not practiced this or had it practiced upon them. It's been done in China, India, all over the world.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)A Cry to Heaven.
It was an interesting book, written a while back.
She did write about uncomfortable subjects, but she wrote them well.
There is nothing supernatural about it, just a story of a castrati.
Probably the reason why I went and rented out the movie Farinelli afterwards.
That was such a crazy practice.
olddots
(10,237 posts)
