The Pope's Eunuchs / Encyc. Britt.
Posted: Mon May 06, 2002 4:31 pm
Library: Historical Documents: Joseph Mccabe: Lies Of Britannica
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order books by and about Joseph McCabe now.
The Lies And Fallacies Of
The Encyclopedia Britanica
How Powerful And Shameless Clerical Forces Castrated
A Famous Work Of Reference
by Joseph McCabe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE POPE'S EUNUCHS
A few years ago I had occasion to refer in one of my books to the male soprani of the papal chapel at Rome. These castrated males, sexually mutilated, as every priest and every Italian knew, for soprani in the choir of the Sistine Chapel, were the amusement of Rome when it developed a large degree of skepticism but a grave scandal to the American and British Catholics who began to arrive about the middle of the last century. One of the vices which the Spaniards had brought to Italy in the 16th century along with the Borgia family and the Spanish Roman Emperors was the falsetto singer. There were artists who could sing falsetto with distinction, but as the opera gained in popularity in Italy the practice began of emasculating boys with good voices and retaining them as male soprani or, as the Italians, with their usual lack of Christian reticence about sex called them, the castrati. They were in every opera in the 18th century, but foreign visitors were never reconciled to them. The famous English weekly,. The Spectator, wrote about "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs," and by the end of the 18th century they began to fade out of the opera-house.
But, as the word "celestial" indicates, they were found also in the choir of all churches that were proud of their music, particularly in the chapel of the Vatican Palace. the Sistine Chapel, one of the greatest shrines of art as well as of virtue and piety in Rome. And the church, clung to their eunuchs when public opinion almost drove them out of opera. The plea seems to have been that there was some indelicacy, or risk of it, in having females in the church choir, so the priests chose to ignore the rather indelicate nature of the operation of emasculation. The fact was as well known as the celibacy of the clergy. Grovels standard "Dictionary of Music and Musicians" (1927) says in a section titled "Castrati":
"Eunuchs were in vogue as singers until comparatively recent times; they were employed in the choirs of Rome."
So Macmillan's and all other leading dictionaries of music, and English and American visitors to Rome before 1870 who wrote books rarely failed to mention, with smirks of humor or frowns of piety, how the beautiful music of the papal choir was due in large part to manufactured soprani. In the later years of the last century I talked with elderly men who had, out of curiosity, dined or lunched with these quaint servants of God.
An American reader wrote me that a Catholic friend, who had doubtless, as is usual, consulted his pastor, indignantly denied the statement. It was one of the usual "lies of Freethinkers." For an easily accessible authority, reliable on such a point, I referred him to the Encyclopedia Britannica. In all editions to 1928 the article "Eunuchs," after discussing the barbaric African custom of making eunuchs for the harem, said:
"Even more vile, as being practiced by a civilized European nation, was the Italian practice of castrating boys to prevent the natural development of the voice, in order to train them as adult soprano singers, such as might formerly be found in the Sistine Chapel. Though such mutilation is a crime punishable with severity, the supply of soprani never failed as long as these musical powers were in demand in high quarters. Driven long ago from the Italian stage by public opinion they remained the musical glory and the moral shame of the papal choir till the accession of Pope Leo XII, one of whose first acts was to get rid of them."
My correspondent replied, to my astonishment, that there was no such passage in the Britannica, and I began the investigation of which I give the results in the present little book. I found at once that in the 14th edition, which was published in 1929, the passage had been scandalously mutilated, the facts about church choirs suppressed, and the reader given an entirely false impression of the work of Leo XII. In this new edition the whole of the above passage is cut out and this replaces it:
"The Italian practice of castrating boys in order to train them as adult soprano singers ended with the accession of Pope Leo XIII."
The reader is thus given to understand that the zealous Pope found the shameless practice lingering in the opera-houses and forbade it. The fact, in particular, that the Church of Rome had until the year 1878 not only permitted this gross mutilation but required it for the purpose of its most sacred chapel -- that Pope Pius IX, the first Pope to be declared infallible by the Church, the only modern Pope for whom the first official stage of canonization was demanded, sat solemnly on his throne in the Sistine Chapel for 20 years listening to "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs" -- were deliberately suppressed. Those facts are so glaringly inconsistent with the claims of Catholic writers in America that the suppression was clearly due to clerical influence, and I looked for the method in which it had been applied.
The Encyclopedia is, as its name implies, an ancient British institution inspired by the great French Encyclopedia of the 18th century. As the American reading public increased it served both countries, and by 1920 the special needs of American readers and the great development of science and technics made it necessary to prepare an entirely recast edition. It now had an American as well as a British staff and publishing house. and it was dedicated to King George and President Hoover. The last trace of the idealism of its earlier publishers disappeared. What bargains were secretly made to secure a large circulation we do not know but when the work was completed in 1928 the Westminster Catholic Federation which corresponds to the Catholic Welfare organization in America, made this boast in its annual report:
"The revision of the Encyclopedia Britannica was undertaken with a view to eliminate matter which was objectionable from a Catholic point of view and to insert what was accurate and unbiased. The whole of the 28 volumes were examined, objectionable parts noted, and the reasons for their deletion or amendment given. There is every reason to hope that the new edition of the Britannica will he found very much more accurate and impartial than its predecessors."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order books by and about Joseph McCabe now.
The Lies And Fallacies Of
The Encyclopedia Britanica
How Powerful And Shameless Clerical Forces Castrated
A Famous Work Of Reference
by Joseph McCabe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE POPE'S EUNUCHS
A few years ago I had occasion to refer in one of my books to the male soprani of the papal chapel at Rome. These castrated males, sexually mutilated, as every priest and every Italian knew, for soprani in the choir of the Sistine Chapel, were the amusement of Rome when it developed a large degree of skepticism but a grave scandal to the American and British Catholics who began to arrive about the middle of the last century. One of the vices which the Spaniards had brought to Italy in the 16th century along with the Borgia family and the Spanish Roman Emperors was the falsetto singer. There were artists who could sing falsetto with distinction, but as the opera gained in popularity in Italy the practice began of emasculating boys with good voices and retaining them as male soprani or, as the Italians, with their usual lack of Christian reticence about sex called them, the castrati. They were in every opera in the 18th century, but foreign visitors were never reconciled to them. The famous English weekly,. The Spectator, wrote about "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs," and by the end of the 18th century they began to fade out of the opera-house.
But, as the word "celestial" indicates, they were found also in the choir of all churches that were proud of their music, particularly in the chapel of the Vatican Palace. the Sistine Chapel, one of the greatest shrines of art as well as of virtue and piety in Rome. And the church, clung to their eunuchs when public opinion almost drove them out of opera. The plea seems to have been that there was some indelicacy, or risk of it, in having females in the church choir, so the priests chose to ignore the rather indelicate nature of the operation of emasculation. The fact was as well known as the celibacy of the clergy. Grovels standard "Dictionary of Music and Musicians" (1927) says in a section titled "Castrati":
"Eunuchs were in vogue as singers until comparatively recent times; they were employed in the choirs of Rome."
So Macmillan's and all other leading dictionaries of music, and English and American visitors to Rome before 1870 who wrote books rarely failed to mention, with smirks of humor or frowns of piety, how the beautiful music of the papal choir was due in large part to manufactured soprani. In the later years of the last century I talked with elderly men who had, out of curiosity, dined or lunched with these quaint servants of God.
An American reader wrote me that a Catholic friend, who had doubtless, as is usual, consulted his pastor, indignantly denied the statement. It was one of the usual "lies of Freethinkers." For an easily accessible authority, reliable on such a point, I referred him to the Encyclopedia Britannica. In all editions to 1928 the article "Eunuchs," after discussing the barbaric African custom of making eunuchs for the harem, said:
"Even more vile, as being practiced by a civilized European nation, was the Italian practice of castrating boys to prevent the natural development of the voice, in order to train them as adult soprano singers, such as might formerly be found in the Sistine Chapel. Though such mutilation is a crime punishable with severity, the supply of soprani never failed as long as these musical powers were in demand in high quarters. Driven long ago from the Italian stage by public opinion they remained the musical glory and the moral shame of the papal choir till the accession of Pope Leo XII, one of whose first acts was to get rid of them."
My correspondent replied, to my astonishment, that there was no such passage in the Britannica, and I began the investigation of which I give the results in the present little book. I found at once that in the 14th edition, which was published in 1929, the passage had been scandalously mutilated, the facts about church choirs suppressed, and the reader given an entirely false impression of the work of Leo XII. In this new edition the whole of the above passage is cut out and this replaces it:
"The Italian practice of castrating boys in order to train them as adult soprano singers ended with the accession of Pope Leo XIII."
The reader is thus given to understand that the zealous Pope found the shameless practice lingering in the opera-houses and forbade it. The fact, in particular, that the Church of Rome had until the year 1878 not only permitted this gross mutilation but required it for the purpose of its most sacred chapel -- that Pope Pius IX, the first Pope to be declared infallible by the Church, the only modern Pope for whom the first official stage of canonization was demanded, sat solemnly on his throne in the Sistine Chapel for 20 years listening to "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs" -- were deliberately suppressed. Those facts are so glaringly inconsistent with the claims of Catholic writers in America that the suppression was clearly due to clerical influence, and I looked for the method in which it had been applied.
The Encyclopedia is, as its name implies, an ancient British institution inspired by the great French Encyclopedia of the 18th century. As the American reading public increased it served both countries, and by 1920 the special needs of American readers and the great development of science and technics made it necessary to prepare an entirely recast edition. It now had an American as well as a British staff and publishing house. and it was dedicated to King George and President Hoover. The last trace of the idealism of its earlier publishers disappeared. What bargains were secretly made to secure a large circulation we do not know but when the work was completed in 1928 the Westminster Catholic Federation which corresponds to the Catholic Welfare organization in America, made this boast in its annual report:
"The revision of the Encyclopedia Britannica was undertaken with a view to eliminate matter which was objectionable from a Catholic point of view and to insert what was accurate and unbiased. The whole of the 28 volumes were examined, objectionable parts noted, and the reasons for their deletion or amendment given. There is every reason to hope that the new edition of the Britannica will he found very much more accurate and impartial than its predecessors."