Hapsburg Inbreeding with Dr. Adam Rutherford

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of Early Modern Europe’s most powerful families, the Hapsburgs shared a physical trait so distinctive that it came to be regarded as a badge of honour - the large, jutting jaw that was a result of family inbreeding. But that was only part of their physiological challenges.

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks genetics, inbreeding and the sad fate of the Hapsburgs with Dr. Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes.

This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:38.6	Despite being an age that assumed a dubious crawlery between outward appearance and inward
0:44.3	quality, no one went so far as to call the Habsburgs good looking.
0:49.5	But the Habsburg monarchs shared one characteristic, so distinctive, that it came to be regarded
0:55.1	as a badge of honor, a symbol of membership of one of the most powerful families of early
0:59.7	modern Europe.
1:01.0	I imagine that as a keen listener of not just the tutors, you can picture it.
1:05.6	The Habsburg chin, or more precisely, the Habsburg jaw.
1:09.2	It juts out sharply, pulling the lower lip into a bulbous shape and is accompanied by an
1:14.8	over-large nose.
1:16.8	These were a result of mandibular prognathism, and this trait was caused by an unfortunate
1:23.0	family predilection, uncles marrying nieces.
1:27.3	In fact, the prognathism was hardly the worst of it, as we shall see.
1:31.9	To discuss the inbreeding of the Habsburgs, I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Adam Rutherford.
1:37.7	We don't often get to speak to scientists on this podcast, so I'm glad that on one
	...

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