Question about historical cannibalism in Europe

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Question inspired from playing a game set in 16th century China.

We've all seen this meme:

And generally with eastern media they jump into the question of eating long pork distressingly fast. With the Americas and Africa being well known for cases of cannibalism with its savages. Which brings me to the following historical question, did Europeans also engage in cannibalism in time of famine and it's been hushed historically (for obvious reasons) or were people in Europe more willing to starve to death before crossing this moral threshold?

 

[Schwarzwald]

White people don't season dey white people, fool. Without da seasonins people is too nasty to eat.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

The first thing that springs to my mind was Sawney Bean and his cannibal clan, up in Scotland, but that wasn't really a cultural thing, more of a one-off, Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style situation, where it was one big inbred family of 40+ individuals, roaming the highlands and capturing whatever poor unlucky bastard they could find to torture, eat and possibly rape. Not necessarily in that order.

I think they also ate people during World War II, on the Eastern Front, when the Russkies and the krauts were fighting eachother, but again, that was more of a desperation thing than anything else, and I don't think it was especially widespread. At least, I hope it wasn't.

 

[Foxxo]

By "long pork", do you mean man tenderloin, or just man loin?

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

There was a weird medical fad for eating ground up human mummies (as in embalmed corpses, not like mothers) after a mistranslation of "mummia" meaning tar bitumen, but it was more like a medicine than food, they weren't eating mummy dust as a staple or anything. And it died out once people became aware it was a mistake.
IIRC shipwrecked sailors would eat each other if they really had to as well, like if they would starve otherwise.

There's been a few cases in recent years of body mod fanatics and troons doing weird shit like castrating each other and eating the bits, like Armin Meiwes or Alan "Sarah Jane" Baker eating his own testicles, but those aren't widespread. At least I hope they're not.

 

[David Brown]

Does drinking human blood count as cannibalism?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

And generally with eastern media they jump into the question of eating long pork distressingly fast. With the Americas and Africa being well known for cases of cannibalism with its savages. Which brings me to the following historical question, did Europeans also engage in cannibalism in time of famine and it's been hushed historically (for obvious reasons) or were people in Europe more willing to starve to death before crossing this moral threshold?

Bruh White people would jump into cannibalism without starving at all. Medical cannibalism. Lots of medicines in the past were made from various parts of bodies. Especially mummies.

Nom nom nom nom

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

Bruh White people would jump into cannibalism without starving at all. Medical cannibalism. Lots of medicines in the past were made from various parts of bodies. Especially mummies.

Nom nom nom nom

Yeah but killing the people to eat them was really rare. Corpse eating happened all the time during long sieges and famines.
I think only some drugged up Africans, Haitians and Papuans kill people just to eat them. (Even then the Papuans kill them for tribal warfare and eat them to not waste protein)

 

[Male Idiot]

Not that I know of beside victorian mummy snorting.

But even that was a rare thing as mummies aren't common unlike what (((Big Diablo))) would have you believe.

 

[Staticness]

see, white people in europe are insane cannibals and must be enlightened by aryan culture.

 

[LemonMice]

where it was one big inbred family of 40+ individuals, roaming the highlands and capturing whatever poor unlucky bastard they could find to torture, eat and possibly rape. Not necessarily in that order.

I know an inbred family of whites, and they are fucking weird, creepy and dumb (but would be competent at simple, savage malicious acts). It just solidifies my belief in eugenics as we're a crop that needs proper breeding practices to at least not stagnate (and we're declining, especially when it comes to producing exceptions people 3+ Z above the average.

Morality and eugenics is a struggle, but we don't have magical transhumanist solutions. And the political will isn't there to do simple selective breeding to create more geniuses or super-geniuses. We don't even really need to do eugenics since transhumanism is a possibility now, we just need to produce a high enough volume of geniuses and super geniuses and make them solve all of our problems.

 

[Meriasek]

Which brings me to the following historical question, did Europeans also engage in cannibalism in time of famine

Sure. Not really hushed up, either, it just happens during famines. Lots of reports of cannibalism in the various famines caused by the Russian Revolution and the civil war and then dekulakization, for example.

 

[shadyreapers_]

if pushed hard enough , anyone is capable of anything

 

[FuckedOffToff]

highlands

Sawney Bean had a massive cave system him and his inbred brood lived in on the coast in the lowlands.
It was near a highway, so they'd pop up, steal valuables, people, and then disappear back into the caves no one knew existed, which made their crimes all the more horrifying and salacious.
Lots of fodder for the penny dreadfuls of the time.
Apparently there's zero historical evidence that this family actually existed, but I know for a fact the caves do.

 

[Taki Supremacy]

Sawney Bean had a massive cave system him and his inbred brood lived in on the coast in the lowlands.
It was near a highway, so they'd pop up, steal valuables, people, and then disappear back into the caves no one knew existed, which made their crimes all the more horrifying and salacious.
Lots of fodder for the penny dreadfuls of the time.
Apparently there's zero historical evidence that this family actually existed, but I know for a fact the caves do.

Maybe not a good source but Dankula has an old video on them.

As far as organized cannibalism, like in OP's example, I can't recall anything past pre-history. Dated 7,000 years ago, the site at Herxheim, Germany, shows evidence of between 500-1000 people killed and eaten. The bones show that they were cooked, fileted, then bashed open for marrow consumption. There's no indication of farms or massive amounts of hunting in the settlement, so the cannibalism was most likely ritualistic in some form. They have found trinkets and tools carved from human bone. Artifacts have been found in the many mass graves indicating people were brought from far away to be eaten.

In fact the word "cannibal" comes from the 1550's Spanish, referring to the natives of the Caribbean and their penchant to eat each other after a battle. In Old English the word was selfæta.

I remember the story of Vercingetorix of the Guals, who stood at the battle of Alesia against Julius Caeser. They wound up in a weird siege situation, were Caeser was besieging Alesia, but also himself was besieged by a large Guallic army attempting to rescue Vercingetorix and the city. Supposedly, one of Vercingetorix's generals came up to him and explained that the city could only hold out for a short time, but then joked that there were many woman and children in the city. If these women and children were eaten, they could hold out forever against the Romans. Vercingetorix considered this, and then ordered that the women and children be expelled from the city, as surely the Romans would let them go, and maybe create an opening in the Roman lines the Guallic relief force could exploit. Instead, the Romans refused to allow passage and the woman and children of the city died of thirst and starved to death in the no man's land between the city and the Roman siege lines.