Cannibalism in Medieval to 19th-Century Europe

Europeans practiced cannibalism well into the 19th century, and one of the favored ways to consume their own kind happened with beheadings. Here you see close-ups of a 1649 painting by artist John Weesop called “An Eyewitness Representation of the Execution of King Charles I”. Notice in the second image the rush of people collecting the King’s blood with rags. They were about to have a tasty snack.

Jk, they didn’t drink the neck blood because they thought it was delicious — they thought it was a super-cure. In Britain especially, royal blood was likened to a centuries-old belief in “the King’s touch”, when the ruler was thought to be able to cure goiters and skin diseases with a mere touch of his hand. How much more potent was his blood, then, for all sorts of maladies?.

And it wasn’t just British kings. An 18th-century observer of a hanging in Italy writes of a hanged man who was removed from a scaffold and after “they opened his veins, distributed it in large glassfuls, to such as were afraid of apoplectic fits, or any other sudden or violent death, who drank it up greedily”.

Evidence from France (King Louis XVI from the Revolution), Germany, and Ireland shows similar beliefs continuing for hundreds of years. Final example — in 1858 a German peasant woman “took some blood (of a criminal) away with her in a little bottle,” saying ‘I’m going to paint the front door with it, it’s good against the danger of fire'”. I know, this case isn’t cannibalism, but it shows the continuity of using the blood of the executed for good luck.

Thinking that the consumption of fellow humans might have brought medical benefits was common for physicians in the 1500s, but by the 1700-1800s, medical professionals decried the practice. As we know from recent experience with false COVID treatments today, folk remedies can have a traction that is all their own, supported by hope, confirmation bias, and sundry other cultural beliefs.