Forbidden Knowledge Part 19

Touch of Evil Al Capone was impressed with a story about his new trigger man, Tony Accardo, who took a liking to going to town on his rivals with a baseball bat. "That kid's a real Joe Batters," Capone said approvingly, and Accardo lived up to the moniker.

h.e.l.l Hath No Fury:

4 Angry Queens

Whether they were picking fights with the Arabs or torching all of the nation's heretics at the stake, these royal highnesses were definitely capable of a little rage, and more than a few people felt the burn.

_01:: Nitocris (2200 BCE) OK, so Nitocris didn't exactly leave an archaeological record, but as far as the story goes, she was brave, beautiful, and married to her brother (which was common among Egyptian royalty). At some point, a mob killed her sib/hubby and put her on the throne, all of which made Nitocris the first woman known to rule Egypt. Her response wasn't exactly sweet, though. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, after a few years in charge, Nitocris built a big underground chamber, and then invited her brother-husband's slayers to a banquet. But just as they were settling in, Nitocris had the chamber flooded, to kill all of them. After the murders, she didn't exactly celebrate. Her life's work having been done, Nitocris then killed herself by jumping into a room full of hot ashes. At least her revenge was inspirational, though. In 1928, a 17-year-old kid had his first story published, in Weird Tales magazine. The story was called "The Vengeance of Nitocris." The kid was eventually called Tennessee Williams.

_02:: Dihya al-Kahina (ca. 694 CE) The Berbers of North Africa were religiously a mixed lot in the last part of the seventh century: pagans, Christians, and Jews. But not Muslims. So when Arabs began pushing into the area with a convert-or-die message, the Berbers pushed back. Their leader was a tough, smart Jew said by some to be a prophetess. Keep the emphasis on tough. Al-Kahina took no mercy on the Arabs, and forced them to retreat almost out of Africa. Convinced they wouldn't come back if there were no riches to take, al-Kahina then mounted a scorched-earth campaign that decimated the region's settled areas. Irrespective of her efforts, the Arabs decided to return anyway, and al-Kahina's army was soundly defeated. It's unclear whether she died in battle or was captured and executed. Either way, legend claims she was 127 years of age when she died, which might be just a tad old to still be on the warpath.

_03:: Mary I (15161558) Mary I had it pretty tough for much of her life, especially for a princess. Her dad, Henry VIII, had married her uncle's widow, which made her mom, Catherine of Aragon, her aunt, sort of. But never mind that. The important thing is that Hal divorced Catherine only to claim that it made Mary a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Despite their religious differences (Henry being a Protestant and Mary an ardent Catholic), however, dad and daughter managed to reconcile. That is, until a crown was placed upon her head. When Mary became queen in 1553, she quickly decided there wasn't room for two religions in England. She was also quick to act on said belief. During her reign, about 300 people were burned at the stake for heresy, earning her a place in history as "b.l.o.o.d.y Mary." Shortly after a disastrous war with France, she died alone, having been abandoned by her husband and being childless. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

_04:: Queen Isabella Offs Her Fella Edward II was, surprise, the son of King Edward I of England. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the Deuce liked boysparticularly a French knight named Piers Gaveston. Although married to Isabella, daughter of the French king, Edward spent most of his time hunting and cavorting with Piers, showering him with gifts and, occasionally, playing some "hide the scepter." But Isabella didn't take kindly to being ignored. Taking a lover of her own, Roger de Mortimer, Izzy decided to oust Edward and proclaim her son the king. She and Mortimer imprisoned Edward II until, in 1327, they decided it would be better to just get rid of him. The method of execution was unbelievably gruesome. Edward was wedged between two tables. Then a hunting horn was inserted into his, ahem, royal exit door. Then a red-hot poker was shoved through the horn, cauterizing poor Ed's intestines and killing him. While this method was partly chosen as punishment for Edward's h.o.m.os.e.xuality, the more practical (and horrifically devious) reason was that it would leave no marks on Edward's body, so Isabella could claim he died of natural causes.

Touch of Evil Elizabeth I had known and loved Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Ess.e.x, since he was a child. And while she had no choice but to put him to death in 1601 after he had taken part in an uprising against her, the event triggered a bitter depression from which she never recovered.

Good Witch Hunting:

5 Trials or Cases Where Reason

Was Turned Upside Down

Sometimes Lady Justice isn't blind, she's just ma.s.sively embarra.s.sed. The following are five cases where the light of truth could have used some more wattage.

_01:: Autun v. the Rats When the French province of Autun's barley began disappearing in 1521, the local rats were charged with stealing. When they failed to answer a summons (yes, really!), their appointed lawyer, Bartholomew Cha.s.senee, argued that a single summons was invalid because the rats lived in different villages. New summonses were issued. This time Cha.s.senee argued some of his clients were aged and infirm and needed more time. After that, he argued the rats were afraid to come to court because of all the cats along the way. When villagers refused to obey a court order to lock up their cats, charges against the rodents were dismissed. Cha.s.senee later became France's leading jurist. The dirty rats presumably returned to lives of crime.

_02:: Making a Monkey of the Prosecutor It was a simple case. In 1925, a Dayton, Tennessee, teacher had taught Darwin's theory of evolution in defiance of a new state law. But the charges quickly became international news when Clarence Darrow, the era's most famous liberal lawyer, took up teacher John Scopes's defense. The case only got more intriguing when William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate, joined the prosecution. During the defense's case, Darrow stunned the courtroom and a national radio audience by calling Bryan to the stand. For two hours, the two dueled over Bryan's literal interpretation of the Bible. It was immensely entertaining, but had almost nothing to do with the case. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100. Bryan died a few days after the trial. And the state's ban on teaching evolution was reversedin 1967.

Touch of Evil In 1982, laid-off Detroit autoworker Ronald Ebens literally beat a Chinese-American man to death after mistaking him for j.a.panese and blaming him for the loss of jobs stateside. In the judicial farce that followed, Ebens pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received three years' probation.

_03:: The Scottsboro Boys There were 11 of them: nine black male teenagers and two white women, all traveling in a freight car through Alabama in 1931. When they hit the town of Scottsboro, though, all 11 were arrested for vagrancyand the two women quickly cried rape. Defense attorneys were given 25 minutes to prepare their case. In the kangaroo court proceedings that followed, all nine boys were quickly convicted by an all-white jury, and eight were sentenced to death. The U.S. Communist Party hired attorney Samuel Leibowitz for the boys, and he convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the convictions. The nine were retriedand reconvicted, despite the confession of one of the victims that the rapes never happened. Then, a third trial was ordered. This time, four were acquitted. Of the other five, one escaped and the other four were eventually paroled. The whole thing took almost 20 years.

Scandalicious Iroquois Warfare Spurs Lacrosse Game!

Think lacrosse is a game for high schoolers in pleated skirts? Despite the sport's growing popularity around the world, the history of lacrosse isn't generally known. Originally dubbed Gatciihkwae, or "Little Brother of War," lacrosse began as training for young men from tribes in the Iroquois federation of what is now upstate New York, preparing them for hunting and combat. The equipment resembled that used in the modern gamesmall baskets attached to the ends of sticks, which were used to catch and volley a small round stone. The game itself, however, has changed pretty drastically. "Little Brother of War" exhibitions lasted for two or even three days on a "field" that ranged from 500 yards to a few miles in length, and involved up to 1,000 players. Needless to say, the game was incredibly violent (no sideline medics or oxygen tanks), and extreme injury or even death was considered just a part of the play.

_04:: The Twinkie Defense There wasn't much question it was Dan White who climbed through a window at San Francisco City Hall in 1978 and methodically shot to death Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the nation's most prominent gay politicians. So lawyers for White, who was an ex-cop and county supervisor, relied on a "diminished capacity" defense. They argued White was too depressed to commit premeditated murder. As proof, they briefly mentioned White's recent consumption of sugary snack foods. Oddly enough, the defense worked, and White was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder. The verdict, however, triggered a night of rioting in the city's gay community. White served five years in prison and then killed himself a few months after his release. In 1982, California voters abolished diminished capacity as a legal defense.

_05:: "Can't We All Just Get Along?"

On March 3, 1991, a 25-year-old black man named Rodney King was stopped by Los Angeles police for reckless driving. While a pa.s.serby videotaped the affair, several cops began viciously beating King, and four were charged with a.s.sault. In a controversial move, the trial was shifted from L.A. to the suburban community of Simi Valley, where a jury of 10 whites, an Asian American, and a Latino acquitted the police, despite the videotaped evidence. And while the ruling made no sense, what happened next was unimaginable. The verdict triggered one of the worst riots in U.S. history, with more than 50 people killed, 4,000 injured, and $1 billion in property damage done. The violence was so great that it spurred King to make his famous query: "Can't we all just get along?" The following year, two of the cops were convicted in federal court of violating King's civil rights. The other two were again acquitted.

My G.o.d's More Furious Than Yours:

5 Deities with Anger Management Problems

There are more than a few deities from world mythology that had serious issues reining in their powerful emotionsand with omnipotence to match, the results were often devastating, as well as really entertaining.

_01:: Artemis: The Angry Bathing G.o.d The ultimate definition of a woman scorned, Artemis, the Greek G.o.ddess of the hunt, of nature, and of chast.i.ty, had a temper notorious even by the standards of her fellow anger-p.r.o.ne Olympians. The fact that she killed her follower Maera and changed another friend, Callisto, into a bear was the least of it (in both cases, by the way, the hapless ladies had committed the "crime" of losing their virginity). Along with her brother Apollo, Artemis slaughtered the children of the Theban queen Niobe, for no more than insulting their mother. On two separate occasions young men had the misfortune to stumble upon Artemis while she bathed naked in the forest; one was turned into a stag and promptly killed by his own hounds, while the other got off easy (only being turned into a woman). Artemis even killed a girl named Chione for the sin of being too beautifulwhich became more of a sin when the girl's beauty was said to rival the G.o.ddess's.

_02:: Kali: The Badly Dressed G.o.d A Hindu fertility G.o.ddess, Kali is the female aspect of divine energy and the consort of Shiva, the Destroyer. As the slayer of evil spirits and the somewhat unpredictable mother of all life, she also moonlights as the G.o.ddess of death. Not a bad gig, except the uniform's a little scary. To show how many evil spirits she's slain, Kali's usually depicted wearing a necklace of human skulls and a girdle of severed arms, children's corpses as earrings, and cobras as bracelets. The outfit is pulled together, however, by her ferocious grimace and the blood smeared on her face. And in her eight arms she holds weapons or the severed head of a demon, representing both her creative and her destructive power. Some followers honored her with animal sacrifices, though a few even took things to the next level. One India-wide sect, the Thuggee, kidnapped and murdered humans as sacrifices to "the Dark Mother" until they were wiped out by British colonial authorities in the 1800s.

_03:: Huitzilopchtli: The Needy (in a Human Sacrificial Way) G.o.d Huitzilopchtli, the Aztec G.o.d of the sun and war, was worshiped with rites so horrific that they probably couldn't be shown in the most demented of horror movies today. As far as the mythology goes, he's been causing a violent ruckus since birth. Right after he was born, Huitzilopchtli killed his own sister, Coyolxauhqui, and hung her head in the sky as the moon. He then killed thousands of his other siblings and placed them in the sky as the stars and planets. Not easily appeased, Huitzilopchtli, like virtually all Aztec deities, demanded constant human sacrifice as his price for not destroying the world. And boy did he get 'em! Every day, people were slaughtered in his temples and their hearts offered to the sun. Of course, during festivals, you could count on Huitzilopchtli's wrath to make sure that thousands of people were sacrificed at a time.

_04:: Thor: The G.o.d of Hammer Time The Norse G.o.d of thunder and protector of the common man, Thor wielded a war hammer so heavy that only he could use it. In fact, the weapon was so unwieldy that he was known from time to time to fly off the handle (no pun intended). Of course, that wasn't his only unusual gimmick. Like any G.o.d who commands respect, Thor enjoyed rolling around town in a pimped-out chariot drawn bywhat else?magic goats. And as if that doesn't sound tough enough, his ride also was equipped to scorch the earth wherever it went. But back to his wrath; nothing could get on Thor's nerves like Loki, the divine trickster. And eventually, it was Thor's anger that became the driving force behind Loki's torturous imprisonment, strapped down to a rock under a mountain with venom dripping into his face. Not that the rascal didn't deserve it. You can't, after all, just go around stealing the hair off Thor's wife's head and expect not to have to pay. Aside from cruelty to Loki, though, Thor's anger also emerged when he treated a group of dwarves rather roughly for making advances on the G.o.ddess Freya. But then again, Thor was generally on the hunt for a good fight. What more can you expect from a G.o.d whose favorite pastime is killing giants and monsters?

_05:: Balor: The Never-Look-Himin-the-Eye G.o.d Balor of the Evil Eye, as he was called, was the Celtic G.o.d of the underworld and king of the Fomorians, a race of giants whom myth a.s.signed to the Emerald Isle. As the story goes, Balor's mere gaze was enough to kill anyone it fell on (though, he normally kept his eye closed). That, of course, didn't keep him from doing plenty of wrong. Among his more nefarious doings was locking up his daughter Ethlinn in a vain attempt to keep her from having her child, a prophesied savior. (Her son, Lugh, eventually became G.o.d of the sun and killed Balor by throwing a spear into his eye.) Balor was also pretty fond of picking wars in order to use his evil eye. In fact, in one of them, Balor was thrilled to put an end to King Nuada, the Celtic sea G.o.d, using just his fearsome gaze.

Take Two of These and Maul Me in the Morning:

5 Armies Hopped Up on Goofb.a.l.l.s

The disinhibiting and pain-numbing effects of drugs make them perfect for turning people into killing machines. In fact, criminals on PCP have been reported to withstand multiple shocks with Taser guns, pepper spray, and Mace, and even direct gunshot wounds to the chest, without slowing down. It's no wonder that so many generals have relied on drugs to bring out the so-called best in unwitting soldiers.

_01:: Thai and Burmese Bandit Armies "The Golden Triangle"an area straddling Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, where poppy plants grow particularly wellhas long been a center of the international drug trade, and for centuries national armies, revolutionaries, and criminal gangs have waged war for control of the income it generates. Recently, however, bandits and rebels from all three countries have begun recruiting children, feeding them opium, hashish, amphetamines, and tranquilizers to give them courage, then sending them out on "human wave" attacks. The disturbing phenomenon leaves a huge proportion of the children dead. One adult soldier from Burma who had to fight these poor child soldiers recalled, "There were a lot of boys rushing into the field, screaming like banshees. It seemed like they were immortal, or impervious, or something, because we shot at them but they just kept coming."

_02:: U.S. Army "Go Pills"

Though amphetamines are essentially off-limits for the civilian population of the United States, American armed forces have long made use of them to enhance the fighting abilities of pilots, soldiers, and sailors, and to keep them awake for long periods of time. Interest peaked in World War II, when all the major combatants on both sides conducted extensive research and distributed large amounts of stimulants to their soldiers. Surprisingly enough, America's armed forces continue the practice to this very day. The amphetamine most often dispensed to American servicemen and-women is Dexedrine, short for dextroamphetamine sulfate, also referred to as "go pills." In one April 2002 incident in Afghanistan, pilots from the Illinois Air National Guard accidentally dropped bombs on a Canadian unit, killing four and wounding eight. In the inquiry that followed, the pilots claimed that they were disoriented because they had been forced to take Dexedrine "go pills" by their superiors and would have been declared unfit for combat if they had not.

_03:: n.a.z.i Shock Troops During World War II, n.a.z.i Germany definitely led the pack in its use of amphetamines, cocaine, and other "performance-enhancing" drugs. In fact, amphetamine pills were included in every German soldier's first-aid kit, and n.a.z.i researchers developed chewing gum that delivered a dose of cocaine with each piece. But that wasn't all! According to a book by German author and criminologist Wolf Kemper on the subject, n.a.z.is on Speed, one of the substances tested by the n.a.z.is in 1944, D-IX, was actually a cocaine-based compound that included both amphetamine and a morphine-related chemical to dull pain. The experimental drug was tested on prisoners of war, and n.a.z.i doctors found the test subjects could march 55 miles without a rest before they collapsed. The n.a.z.is hoped that the drug could put some fighting spirit into their armies, which were by that time being defeated on all fronts, but luckily the war ended before production could begin.

_04:: West African Child Soldiers In the brutal civil wars that have bedeviled West Africa over the last two decades, much of the fighting is done by children who are teenagers or younger. Armed with automatic weapons, the children are rewarded with s.e.x, candy, tobacco, or alcoholanything that encourages them to fight. However, sometimes the temptation isn't great enough, so their adult commanders often find it helps to ply them with more powerful drugs that inhibit their judgment. In Sierra Leone, Western observers met children between the ages of 9 and 16 who had been given amphetamines, while children of similar age in the militias of Liberian president Charles Taylor were routinely given cocaine, opium, marijuana, and palm wine to encourage their killer instincts. Often dressed in outlandish costumes out of a belief that strange clothing would protect them in combata wedding dress with fright wig was a favoritethese children were described by the journalists who met them as borderline psychotic.

_05:: Medieval Iranian "a.s.sa.s.sins"

In the 12th century CE, the invading Seljuk Turks encountered resistance from a small but fanatical group of Shiite Muslims in Persia. Unable to defend against the attacks, the resisters, known as the Ismailis (ancestors to today's second largest Shi'a community), retreated to the impenetrable mountain fortress of Alamut, where they continued their life as a separate society. To protect his people, the Ismaili prince Hasan-i Sabbah began recruiting young men and training them to be fanatical religious killers. The training wasn't exactly kosher, though. During one part, he supposedly gave his men huge amounts of hashish and other drugs and led them to a luxurious chamber. There they were plied with copious amounts of drugs and s.e.x by beautiful women, who told them that they were getting a preview of the heaven that awaited if they died in battle. The fanatics were then sent out, still lost in a hashish haze, to kill the prince's opponents. Interestingly, the modern English word "a.s.sa.s.sin" comes from hash-shashin, the Persian word for "hemp eaters."

Black Eye for the Straight Guy:

3 Historical Bar Brawls

What's a good bar without a good brawl? The following are a few famous fisticuff events and the watering holes where they were thrown.

_01:: Truckee, California One of the best barroom brawl scenes isn't plucked from an old cla.s.sic or Western, but rather from a real-life saloon in Truckee, California. In 1891, Jacob Teeter was the constable and James Reed the sometimes deputy of Truckee. But over the years, their friendly rivalry (they always ran against each other for constable) escalated, and the constable-deputy feud finally exploded on November 6. That's the day James Reed and a couple of his pals happened upon Teeter in the local bar. A fight ensued and Reed grabbed Teeter's gun. Embarra.s.sed, Teeter left the bar only to return later on a mission. As Reed walked by, the constable shot point-blank at his deputy. The problem was, he missed. He did, however, succeed in shooting a hole through the hat of a man sitting at the next table. Anyway, the stir set patrons diving in all directions, and Reed pulled his gun (actually the one he'd taken from Teeter) and shot him four times. Teeter died and Reed turned himself in to the law. Instead of being arrested, though, Reed was released and at the coroner's inquest the next day was found innocent by reason of self-defense. However, it appears that Teeter got the best of old Reed in the end. His oversized gravestone lies prominently in the Truckee cemetery, while Reed lies quietly in the same cemetery, condemned to an unmarked grave.

Touch of Evil Twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray, two of England's most infamous gangsters, loved a good punch-up at the local pub. Reggie spent hours perfecting his "sucker punch," whereby he'd offer a man a cigarette with one hand, and crack the guy's jaw with the other.

_02:: John Wayne v. Randolph Scott Car chases and bar brawls are staples of certain genres and the viewing public plays an important role in what survives the director's cutting room. And while a real-life bar brawl might take just minutes to complete, picture-perfect re-creations take a little longer. The movie The Spoilers, for instance, was rereleased five times with different leading casts, the 1942 version starring John Wayne and Randolph Scott. In fact, the flick is well known for having the longest and most complex bar brawl in cinema history. The six-minute fight scene involved over 30 experienced stuntmen and acrobats, and the bar (understandably) was completely trashed by the end of it. And to get the scene just right, the actors went through their paces breaking everything in their paths: from fake breakaway furniture to mirrors to doors, and just for good measure (and cinematography) they slammed each other against walls, too. The scene actually took 10 days to wrap up, much to the satisfaction of John Wayne, who was quite happy to perform some of the stunts himself.

_03:: The Ugly American in Paris Following World War I, FrenchAmerican relations weren't exactly improved by the racist behavior of white American tourists. So in 1923, in a desperate effort to appease wealthy white American tourists, a number of French bars and dance hall owners defied national laws and refused admittance to blacks, including French blacks. Despite government warnings, a group of white Americans drinking one night in a bar in the Montmartre district demanded that two black men who had entered the bar be removed. When the men refused, the ignorant Americans responded by physically throwing them out. The next day the French press announced that Kojo Tovalou Houenou, a prominent leader of the Pan-African movement in Paris and a renowned philosopher, was one of the victims. Outraged and disgusted, President Raymond Poincare denounced the scandal and ordered the bar closeda warning that any French bar trying to exclude blacks, French or otherwise, would be immediately shut down.

Just the Facts The Hungry Duck Bar by Numbers Since the Hungry Duck Bar opened in Moscow, Russia, in 1995, the civilized world hasn't been the same. The bar is notorious for its rowdiness and raunchiness, as the numbers show. In fact, the Hungry Duck is the only bar ever denounced by a national parliament, but the club continues to pay "favors" to stay open.

256: Cases the Moscow police have had involving the bar 8: Number of bullets that have been fired inside 2: Number of bomb threats 8-plus: Number of times the police have raided the establishment 5: Number of owners 4: Death threats each owner has received 1: Kidnapping attempts made 2: Number of full-time carpenters employed by the bar on account of all the regularly broken bar stools 40-plus: Number of customers that have had to receive medical treatment from falling off the bar while dancing 2: Types of draft beer available 0: Food items on the menu *

5 Prophets on the Edge People are always a little skeptical of prophets. After all, when you're telling the world that G.o.d's decided to use you to pa.s.s on His message to the ma.s.ses, or to lead people to some promised land, you're bound to get a few strange looks. Of course, your chances of being believed get even slimmer when you're preaching the gospel of semiautomatics and ma.s.s suicides like the following folks did.

_01:: David Koresh (19591993) Best known as the leader of the ill-fated Branch Davidians, David Koresh led a short life as a prophet of doom. Born Vernon Wayne Howell (which didn't quite have that same son-of-G.o.d ring to it), Koresh joined the Branch Davidian sect in 1981. Founded in the 1930s by Ben and Lois Roden, the Davidians believed the return of the Messiah was imminent. Soon after joining, Koresh had an affair with Lois Roden, who by then was in her late 60s. While on a journey with Koresh to Mount Carmel in Israel, Roden died, and a power struggle for control of the group took place between her son, George, and Koresh. Shortly thereafter, David returned with seven followers, a great amount of conviction, and a couple of semiautomatic a.s.sault weapons (for good measure) to back up his claim. Choosing violence over, say, putting it to a vote, David Koresh attacked George Roden, wounding him in the chest and hands. At a subsequent trial, the seven were acquitted and Koresh's case was declared a mistrial. Believing that he was now the head of the biblical House of David, Koresh moved with his followers to Waco, Texas. Of course, living by the sword (or in this case, the rifle) also meant dying by it. In 1993, Koresh and 74 of his followers perished in a fire during a shootout with federal agents.

_02:: Amos Once upon a time, the Old Testament character Amos was satisfied to herd his sheep and tend to his sycamore trees. But the part-time prophet, as he saw himself, accepted "the call" and quickly became a thorn in the side of the religious establishment. At the time, part of Judea was true to Yahweh, while the religious establishment in Bethel worshiped Baal and the Golden Calf. Yahweh had decided to punish them and famous Amos got the job of providing the bad news. First, Amos accused the wealthy Judeans of being greedy, oppressive, and exploiting the poor. Then, he went after the rich who used their money to bribe judges and political officials. Finally, he accused them of perverting the true Israelite religion by moving the temple to Bethel and worshiping the Golden Calf instead of Yahweh. Not mincing any words, Amos told the leaders that Yahweh wasn't bluffing about the imminent punishment and that they'd better get their act together pretty soon. After that, Amos was no longer welcome at most banquets of the wealthy, with most townsfolk wishing that he'd just go back to his sheep and sycamores.

Touch of Evil David "Moses" Berg, founder of the Children of G.o.d, developed "flirty fishing" to support his flock. Female acolytes had s.e.x with wealthy men for money to earn funds for the church. Of course, any detractors who cried "Prost.i.tution!" were labeled as not having enough faith.