The Lawspeaker
01-29-2011, 12:20 AM
To die like a king: new study says it's most dangerous job in history
Survey by Cambridge professor Manuel Eisner finds risk of death for kings between 600 and 1800AD was very high
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/1/27/1296155699522/charles-i-king-most-dange-007.jpg
King Charles I, who was executed in Whitehall 352 years ago this weekend. Photograph: After Sir Anthony Van Dyck.
Anyone who has read Shakespeare knows this already, but a Cambridge professor has conducted what is probably the first statistical survey to prove that being a king is the most lethal occupation in history.
From Charles I, executed in Whitehall 352 years ago this weekend, to Andronikos I Komnenos – a 12th-century Byzantine emperor, whose death was spread over three days and included having his teeth and eyes gouged out, being suspended by his feet and gradually being hacked to bits – kingship has always been a bit on the risky side.
Manuel Eisner, professor of comparative and developmental criminology at Cambridge, and a specialist in the study of violent crime, based his research on the deaths of 1,513 European monarchs between 600 and 1800AD.
He estimates that their risk of violent death was more than 700 times greater than that of their subjects and seven times greater than that for the most currently at-risk groups: young black American men or people living in the most drug-riddled city in Mexico. Almost a quarter of all royal deaths over 1,200 years was bloody and overwhelmingly those deaths were caused by murder, usually by rivals for the throne. Random assassinations were rare.
Eisner said: "I started this research on a wet Sunday afternoon and it has turned into a research paper and maybe a book. Kings are relatively well documented and there is good information about how they died. The rate at which they were murdered was stunningly high. I was astonished by how much violence was perpetrated, almost exclusively by elite power groups.
"The toll of 15% of outright murders is far higher than the homicide rate for even the most troubled areas of the world today … higher than the threshold for major combat among soldiers engaged in a contemporary war."
His research, to be published online from Monday, shows that 15 out of 17 kings of Scotland between the 9th and 11th centuries were killed, mainly in dynastic feuds; all seven kings of Norway in the first half of the 12th century were killed, as were 14 out of 15 kings of Northumbria in the 8th century.
Even popes were not immune: the teenage 10th-century pope John XII – who racked up an impressive list of charges including sacrilege, simony, perjury, murder, adultery and incest – was killed either by being smitten on the temple by the devil, or, more likely, murdered in his lover's bed by her husband.
While regicide began petering out once societies had more settled lines of succession and legal codes, it has not entirely died out – and with power passing to politicians, they have assumed much of the risk.
Source: The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/28/king-survey-dangerous-job-history) (28 January 2008)
Survey by Cambridge professor Manuel Eisner finds risk of death for kings between 600 and 1800AD was very high
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/1/27/1296155699522/charles-i-king-most-dange-007.jpg
King Charles I, who was executed in Whitehall 352 years ago this weekend. Photograph: After Sir Anthony Van Dyck.
Anyone who has read Shakespeare knows this already, but a Cambridge professor has conducted what is probably the first statistical survey to prove that being a king is the most lethal occupation in history.
From Charles I, executed in Whitehall 352 years ago this weekend, to Andronikos I Komnenos – a 12th-century Byzantine emperor, whose death was spread over three days and included having his teeth and eyes gouged out, being suspended by his feet and gradually being hacked to bits – kingship has always been a bit on the risky side.
Manuel Eisner, professor of comparative and developmental criminology at Cambridge, and a specialist in the study of violent crime, based his research on the deaths of 1,513 European monarchs between 600 and 1800AD.
He estimates that their risk of violent death was more than 700 times greater than that of their subjects and seven times greater than that for the most currently at-risk groups: young black American men or people living in the most drug-riddled city in Mexico. Almost a quarter of all royal deaths over 1,200 years was bloody and overwhelmingly those deaths were caused by murder, usually by rivals for the throne. Random assassinations were rare.
Eisner said: "I started this research on a wet Sunday afternoon and it has turned into a research paper and maybe a book. Kings are relatively well documented and there is good information about how they died. The rate at which they were murdered was stunningly high. I was astonished by how much violence was perpetrated, almost exclusively by elite power groups.
"The toll of 15% of outright murders is far higher than the homicide rate for even the most troubled areas of the world today … higher than the threshold for major combat among soldiers engaged in a contemporary war."
His research, to be published online from Monday, shows that 15 out of 17 kings of Scotland between the 9th and 11th centuries were killed, mainly in dynastic feuds; all seven kings of Norway in the first half of the 12th century were killed, as were 14 out of 15 kings of Northumbria in the 8th century.
Even popes were not immune: the teenage 10th-century pope John XII – who racked up an impressive list of charges including sacrilege, simony, perjury, murder, adultery and incest – was killed either by being smitten on the temple by the devil, or, more likely, murdered in his lover's bed by her husband.
While regicide began petering out once societies had more settled lines of succession and legal codes, it has not entirely died out – and with power passing to politicians, they have assumed much of the risk.
Source: The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/28/king-survey-dangerous-job-history) (28 January 2008)