Hunchbacks

In William Shakespeare's Richard III, someone refers to Richard as “that foule hunch-backt toade.” It's the first recorded instance of the term for someone who had a less-than-straight spine, and—putting aside the question of whether Richard was "hunch-backed"—the term gets used in the literature of the next couple centuries to indicate a bad person.

We know what a back" is, but what is a "hunch"? I once mentioned Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De Proprietatibus Rerum (On the Order of Things), a 1240 work by a Franciscan scholar. It was a popular work that got printed and reprinted and translated for centuries. A 1398 English translation by John of Trevisa uses the word "bunch" to describe what Angelicas said about the back of a camel.  A 1582 re-printing of Trevisa's translation made some changes to "modernize" the English says the Dromedary camel “hath a hunch on his backe,” and "the camele of Arabia hath tweye bonches on the bak."

We have no other source of the origin of the word "hunch" to refer to a lump on someone's back, but the term "hunch-back" became the norm in English.

Earlier, the Wycliffe English translation of Leviticus 21:20 lists all the physical defects that prevent a man from being a priest, including "if he hath a botche"; this is translated as a hunchback; presumably "botche" is equivalent to the Trevisa "bunch" which later became "hunch."

Shakespeare shows how the physical deformity excludes a person from a normal life, such as athletic pursuits or romance:

But I that am not shapte for sportiue trickes,
Nor made to court an amorous looking glasse,
I that am rudely stampt and want loves maiesty,

Exclusion from normal life is seen centuries earlier than Shakespeare in the life of Charlemagne's eldest son, Pepin. He was called Pepin the Hunchback because of a spinal deformity. Years after his birth, Charlemagne had another son (Carloman) with a different woman but re-named him Pepin of Italy at his baptism by the pope. It seems obvious that Charlemagne was "replacing" his eldest Pepin with a new one. To be fair, the first Pepin was born with a concubine, and the second with a "church-legal" wife. The original Pepin staged an unsuccessful rebellion, and I think he deserves his due. We'll discuss his treatment by his father and the rebellion next time. See you soon.