From Bedlam to Love

First, bedlam. Bedlam is colloquial for Bethlehem (aka Bethlem), or specifically St. Mary of Bethlehem, a priory established in London in the 1200s, later given to the mayor to become an asylum for lunatics in 1547. Today it is another name for the U.S. White House.

And lunatics? Of course related to the moon, but directly from the Latin lunaticus meaning moon-struck. So is that why the moon is so often related to love; we all become lunatics as a result?

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