Disclaimer/Preamble/Full Disclosure: In this mostly fictionalized account of his life and times, I do little justice to William of Occam. But the present need for necessary distraction being so great, combined with my desire to provide such vital distraction; a gathering storm has arisen, and the approaching precipitate is set to rain all o’er you. And while I may deceive myself into believing I write these stories for some higher purpose, they usually end up triggering the same pleasure centers in the brain that are fired by cat videos. So although I do aim high, I generally hit rather low and end up hitting the funny bone in such a way that it gets tickled. To wit:

 

The Duke of Occam was a real guy who lived from 1287-1347, or should I say subsisted from 1287-1347 – it still being quite primitive in the last decades of the Dark Ages. In those bleak times a streaming service meant paying someone to ferry you across a river. It was a benighted time – I mean the spatula hadn’t even been invented yet, and people were so dumb, sometimes they forgot how to exhale and would die from asphyxiation. The breathing-challenged were advised, “Help is coming, but don’t hold your breath.” And the help finally did come in the form of Rudolph Heimlich of Nuremberg, who saved thousands by imparting his now famous maneuver for combatting “stuck diaphragm.”

 

Set against this squalid backdrop, the Duke of Occam managed to enjoy his life as a celebrated philosopher, as well as a despotic landowner. Remember, the idea of “benevolence” didn’t really develop until the arrival of the Renaissance in the 15^th century, and “despotic” had not yet become a disparaging term. It was just a standard issue descriptor of all landlords in that era. If you were a landlord in the 14^th century, the only template available was to act despotically. There was no room for wannabe despots in the cozy little Landlord’s Guild – unless you wannabe drummed out for lack of depravity.

 

If you yearned to behave benevolently in the 1300s, you’d be best advised to ferment mead in a monastery or spend 3 weeks trying to artistically compose a calligraphic “G” at the beginning of a Bible manuscript. Help was on the way here too, courtesy of another German polymath named Johannes Gutenberg who invented the printing press round about 1440. So, while the Duke of Occam’s full-time job may have been to despotically oppress the faceless masses he lorded over, he also had an emerging benevolent side that expressed itself through philosophy; and that’s how he came to formulate the clunky principle eponymously referred to as Occam’s Razor – more on that later.

 

In the time before dentistry (unless you considered your barber a dentist), there wasn’t a great need for philosophers, as much as there was a need for root vegetables and anything resembling hygiene. Effete philosophers of the leisure class (a class comprising a total of 18 people worldwide in the hardscrabble 14^th century), dabbled in issuing prescriptions for the refinement of society. But man doth not live by instructive aphorism alone – especially in 1344. In other words, dopey dictums issued by well-fed dilettantes in hopes of combatting societal ills, may have addressed maladaptive behaviors, but they certainly did nothing to combat pervasive hunger or grubby hands. Your average peasant would much prefer a helping of boiled tubers than a prescription for comporting oneself. In other words, thanks for your opium-drenched thoughts Mr. Occam, now make with some victuals.

 

Hunger superseding philosophy notwithstanding, this lord of the manor, this sage of the sharecroppers, this lucky bloke who, by dint of birthright was the owner of the equivalent of 2½ Sherwood Forests – give or take a village – was master of all he surveyed. He cranked out remedies for society’s troubles faster than you can say latrine ditches. Sure the class system was unfair, but it was also unquestioned. That’s just the way things were in the time before spatulas.

 

The wretched rabble weren’t allowed to petition their masters for redress of any kind. And even if they did, their masters refused to redress them, no matter how shabbily they were dressed. Few would protest for fear of waking up drawn and quartered. Moreover, in those crude days when life was cheap and food was scarce, you were considered lucky if you were part of an oppressed majority. Lucky to live on a subsistence diet of scallions, clover and moths. Lucky to have a hovel with your very own soot-stained hearth, burning noxious slabs of warmth-producing peat. This was not some secondhand smoke heating system. Burning peat produced a firsthand unvented cloud of toxic fumes and was considered a very desirable situation, if you were opening a Soot Lodge.

 

If you were part of the oppressed masses, at least you belonged to a group that had an identity and maybe a hovel to call your landlord’s. In the time before heated steering wheels and iced lattes, there were misbegotten people with no birth records, no entry in the Doomsday Book and were descended from family trees that never forked. These were itinerant vassals doomed to roam the swampy fens and dewy downs of medieval England until they could find a despotic landowner willing to adopt and oppress them. Sometimes these cyphers, these non-persons, these Homo de Vacuui (a fake Latin term I just made-up), only hope was to find a prime piece of bottom land to squat on. But having squatted for an extended period of time, would they ever be able to walk erect again? Remember, there was no Viagra in those days.

 

A Day in the Life

On a particularly overcast day (April 16, 1318 Julian calendar), the Little Ice Age was receding and stardust was beginning to coalesce in the constellation Orion giving its star-studded hunter even more definition to his chiseled pecs. Also, on this day the first Starbucks had just opened on the continent in Bremerhaven – Was kann ich für Sie tun? (“What can I get started for you” in German). And despite all these propitious events, the Duke of Occam was dismayed. He was dismayed he’d run out of his favorite grain: Spelt. He really missed spelt. In fact, he misspelt a lot. For example, he spelt “mattress” h-a-y and he spelt “honeymoon” “Oooh la la.” And forget Worcestershire; he couldn’t pronounce or spell it even though Worcestershire comprised half his land holdings. His tenant farmers teased this eccentric nobleman who missed spelt a lot. They all agreed, “If he can’t take a joke, Occam.”  

 

Though it was rarely heeded (or even considered), the philosophic Occam dispensed unasked for advice when it came to large seed cereal grasses, commenting to his wainwright and bootblack, “Be careful Ogden and Harold. There’s no use in crying over spilt spelt. And remember, planting thyme too early in the season can lead to parsley, sage, Rosemary Clooney.” Lord Occam complained of his tenants’ indifference to the guidance he offered: “Occam no one heeds my advice?” In writing his complaint, he had misspelled “How come” as “Occam.” You see, he really missed spelt. Let’s put it this way; old man Occam was heavily involved in the opium trade – and that was just in his parlor.

 

Propitiating the Gods (in a Pagan Kind of Way)

Each year a robust and fertile maiden was selected from Occam’s fiefdom to facilitate bumper crops. This paragon of propagation was known as Miss Spelt (sometimes misspelt as Miss Pelt or Ms. Spelt or one time even as Dazzy Vance). During planting season, it was Miss Spelt’s solemn duty to roam the fields at dawn, stripped to the waist, and bestow upon the earth those chthonic energies that educe germination. It was a mighty duty undertaken in the bracing morning dawn with solemn reverence and pointy nipples. Despite Miss Spelt’s misspent youth…I didn’t really have anything more to add here; I just wanted you to stutter in your head trying to read “Despite Miss Spelt’s misspent youth.”

 

When Miss Spelt wasn’t ceremoniously propitiating the fertility goddess, she supervised a more mundane task – sign-ups for the Wednesday night potlucks. It seems peasants were frequently showing up with a glut of turnip pies because nobody thought of creating a list of assorted dishes from which to choose. There was that famous fiasco on Wednesday September 21, 1307, when the peasantry showed up at the Stoddard hut with 15 turnip pies in tow; and not one Jello Mold. Under Miss Spelt’s mindful supervision, there were clearly defined sign-ups for a variety of locally sourced, farm-to-table savory dishes like: Entrails à la King, Sauteed Soot and a seasonal favorite, Pumpkin Spice Parsnips. Budget conscious families were allowed to bring cheaper dishes like Eggshell Salad and Toasted Air. Under Miss Spelt’s tutelage, gone were the days of Crappy Crepes, Awful Falafels and Mo Fo Po’ Boys. In attempting to crash one of these Wednesday night wingdings, an enterprising husbandman presented his wife at the door, crammed into a really big casserole dish and exclaimed, “Look at this beauty. She’s quite the dish – amiright?” It should be mentioned that back in the 1300s, all food was farm-to-table. It wasn’t some quaint gastronomic virtue to aspire to; it was the only food pathway available. And while Miss Spelt felt keto was neato, she found paleo faileo.

 

Village Life

Occam’s tenant farmers often milled about the workers’ village to shop at the company store where they could always get a good fleecing, some price-gouging or just some plain old run-of-the-mill usury. The great topic of conversation was topics of conversation. Y’know, grist for the mill, scuttlebutt and gossip. Like who was brave enough to take this newfangled thing called a bath. Sometimes the chatter centered on whether Rachel of Worcestershire was ever going to marry that Ross character from Friendsingham. Some discussed their hopes of attending one of those festive Renaissance Faires, but they’d have to wait 50-60 years for the actual Renaissance to happen before they could build a festival around it. Meanwhile the best festival they could muster was the much anticipated Everton Eggshell Festival, which wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

 

Definition of Occam’s Razor:

A principle that states when faced with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, the simplest one is often the best. In other words, simpler explanations are often the most fitting ones, especially when multiple explanations fit the facts equally well. For example, if you live near a horse stable and you notice the hoofprints in the dirt, you can reasonably be assured they were made by horses and not zebras. That’s an actual example of how something as highfalutin as Occam’s Razor operates. This so-called “razor” (razor in the sense it shaves off competing explanations) is hardly a revelation. But this kind of Captain Obvioso hypothesizing was a notable achievement in the murky Dark Ages. For example (and I’m being illustratively facetious here) Lord Occam arrived at his E = mc² moment when, utilizing primitive facial recognition features, he reckoned that because his brother’s face looked so much like his own, that they probably had the same father. This is one of the dullest razors I’ve experienced.

 

Is the Renaissance Ever Going to Get Here?

Well, you know the rest of the story. The years passed and still no one understood the meaning of Stonehenge. Some said it was a proto-Jenga game gone horribly wrong. Others said it was a very poorly designed wristwatch. All we can reasonably conclude is that Stonehenge rocks.

Despite the occasional absence of spelt, the Duke of Occam continued to pontificate. When he died, he left his shaving kit (which included Occam’s Razor) to his son Gillette who parlayed the kit into a multinational corporation. In any event, when reading this essay, I think it’s important to take it all with a grain of spelt.

 

Readers’ Notes

Hardiman’s Ancient Grain Series Continues:
If you enjoyed reading this story’s passing mention of Spelt, you might also enjoy my upcoming essays in which Millet and Amaranth make fleeting cameos.

• Financial Disclosure: These stories are underwritten by no one and overwritten by me
• This story may not be suitable for small children. Large and medium sized children – Yes. Small children – No.
• This story was written on equipment used in processing tree nuts
• To maintain story continuity and not run afoul of community decency standards, I removed a reference about watching Jennifer Love Hewitt running naked through a balloon factory
• If you ever had to tie a spouse’s shoelace – you are part of the problem
• Well qualified readers can read this story interest free, but they won’t be able to, because it’s so damn interesting.

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