Knighthood in the 14th century

Today there are many differing mental visions of the Medieval knight, some wildly romanticised and others more realistic - if we only knew what that reality was. Perhaps it is never possible to strip away the intervening hundreds of years and view anything as it was or was felt to be in the 14th century.

For that reason I am basing this post on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales with its portrait of a knight in the General Prologue. I am greatly indebted to Terry Jones and his disruptive book Chaucer's Knight for much of what follows. 

He argues that, by the time Chaucer wrote, the ideals of knighthood had become so tarnished that the concepts of chivalry and honour were no longer applicable. This allied with the rise of mercenaries who, instead of being permanent, trusted members of a lordly household, were temporary, paid warriors, They may or may not have fulfilled their contracts and could be a scourge in peacetime, idly but violently roaming the countryside and causing havoc.  

At first reading, the knight seems to embody all the high ideals of "chivalrye, Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye". Many of those words had a much more powerful impact then then now, perhaps "trouthe" in particular, because it had a wider and more profound sense of the individual's vowing his entire self-hood to his own integrity.

Then Chaucer describes his modest, worn outfit and lists the many battles at which he was present. Until this book, all scholars had taken this to mean that he was a brave fighter but not flamboyant. Jones probes in forensic detail and finds that the clothing denotes a paid soldier, perhaps fallen on poor times, and that the battles were bloody massacres of innocent people. The line below, which had always been taken at face value, now seems pointedly and bitterly sardonic, focused on the word "gentil" which encapsulated all possible goodly qualities, Jesus being the prime example:

     He was a verray, parfit, gentil knight.

This view means that the sarcastic portrait is of an unscrupulous mercenary and satirical in intention, like most of the other depictions in the General Prologue (excepting the parson and his brother, the ploughman). The satire is aimed less at the character than at the decline in his or her profession. Chaucer is lamenting the debasement of old standards.

I am convinced by this argument although it has recently been modified by scholars - yet never disproved. It was such a shake-up of the previous academic version that I, cynically, feel that embarrassment would prevent compliant agreement in the ivy-clad universities, who could not or would not believe that the co-director  of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, also director of Monty Python's Life of Brian, could teach them anything about history. Ball now in their court, say I. 

Another fact that moves me to accept the satirical interpretation is the presence of "doodles" in the margins of Medieval MSS which depict snails fighting knights and holding their own. Their antennae are as long as the swords and the purpose must be to cast knights as feeble and no better in derring-do than a humble snail. The name is a misnomer because the art works are detailed and beautifully drawn and painted. it's well worth a doodle Google.

The Medieval Christmas - would you have enjoyed it?

Food and drink
   As you look forward to a giant nosh on 25th December, you will recollect that at least 2 popular items were unavailable in the Middle Ages. Potatoes and turkeys were late-comers to these islands and the birds have been regretting their arrival ever since. What DID they eat in the great mansions and castles?
   On Christmas Day 1347 at Hunstanton in Norfolk, Sir Hamon le Strange and his household consumed bread, 2 gallons of wine (12d), 1 big pig for the larder (4s), 1 small pig (6d), a swan which was a gift from Lord Camoys, 2 hens given as rent and 8 rabbits of which 2 were gifts. If this does not seem much - read on.
   The bread for the lord in any important dwelling would probably have been made with white flour, so precious that it was sometimes stored in a locked chest and the lower orders consumed brown rye bread. All roasted poultry and animals demanded specific ways of carving: a mallard was "unbraced"; a heron "dismembered"; a coney "unlaced" and a hen "spoiled." This delicate work was done by rushlight. Other ingredients might be venison, fawn, kid, bustard, stork, crane, peacock, sparrow, baked quinces, damsons in wine, and a range of vegetables used in sauces rather than served independently. The wine could be Rhenish, Gascon or Spanish and Sir Hamon seems almost teetotal when we recall that Chaucer was allowed a gallon every normal day. No wonder The Canterbury Tales rip along and were never finished!

Entertainment
   William of Malmesbury relates how, on a Christmas night, 12 carollers (holding hands in a circle and skipping around the leader who sang) danced around a church and persuaded the priest's daughter to join them. He uttered a curse so that their hands became inseparably joined and, when the son ran out to save his sister, her arm broke off like a rotten stick. Better keep to Scrabble, say I.

   Yet there would have been music, dancing and performances of "disguising games" - in these plays, the emphasis was on roles exemplified by masks rather than words and scripts. Heroes were pitted against evils such as legendary giants. Edward III was so enthusiastic about these that, for Christmas 1338, he ordered 86 plain masks, 14 with long beards, 15 baboons' heads of linen, 12 ells of canvas to make a forest, a wooden pillory and a cucking [sic] stool. In 1347 he required similar but with some masks as women, angels, dragons' heads, pheasant heads and wings, swan's heads plus starry tunics, whilst, in 1348, he took part in such a mumming himself, dressed as a giant bird. We are going to try all this ourselves this year instead of charades - I have bagsied the role of huge avian.

Role reversal etc

  In the spirit of satire and merriment, household roles would be upturned so that a menial servant could become the lord and give orders to the higher ranks. This period of misrule lasted until January 6th, Twelfth Night. It is an entertaining idea and was no doubt hilarious in enactment, but it represents a serious belief in The Wheel of Fortune. All humans were attached to this wheel, spun by the blindfolded goddess and no-one could be sure of holding his or her position on it as it rotated: the fate of any one individual did not depend on virtue but on chance. The concept permeates King Lear although the play most representative of the traditions is, of course, Twelfth Night, which was first performed at the end of an elongated Christmas period on 2 February 1602 (Candlemas) and whose subtitle is What You Will, suggesting misrule. In it Sir Toby Belch and his cronies (mere guests) upset the order of Olivia's household - love and cross-dressing overturn everything else, including gender roles. The riotous habits of the aptly surnamed Sir Toby were stressed along with musical interludes whilst Malvolio, embodying austerity, is humiliated. Sir Toby's language probably contains obscene slang.
   It is likely that this period, from Christmas to Epiphany, seemed particularly dreary, rainy and frost-bound and so was transformed into a long holiday. Services required of villeins were suspended and manorial servants received their "perquisites", bonuses of food, clothing, drink and firewood, their traditional seasonal due. On Christmas Eve the Yule log, a massive section of tree trunk, was brought in and kept burning for 12 days. If the tenants were invited, they ate food mostly provided by themselves on their own dishes. (Does this explain how Sir Hamon managed to be relatively miserly?) A bean was hidden in a CAKE or loaf and the finder became king of the feast.
  If all this makes our dash to the supermarket seem a little soulless, remember that, in 1251, Matthew Paris complained that Henry III not only economised on Christmas expenses but demanded costly gifts from his subjects, staying in more lowly households which had to honour him with splendid entertainments and gold or silver cups or jewelled necklaces. I think I'll settle for the family crackers and quiz after all.

My personal memory of Christmas past
 After midday dinner all my relatives would arrive by taxi as no-one had cars and we settled down to gambling at unsophisticated card games and a well-worn horse-betting set-up called Backeroo. Tea consisted of cold chicken sandwiches and trifle: even during post-WWII rationing, my mother managed these (although obtaining lard was problematic). What I remember, apart from losing my pennies - this was not a child-centred epoch - is the horrid, sticky nature of the cards which developed little black greasy circles through over-use because of the paper shortage. Even now I marvel that you can buy lovely glossy playing cards so cheaply and actually enjoy handling them. (When she was plucking and dressing the fowl, my mother gave the infant me a claw to play with and I would pull the tendons to make it clench and relax. I have grown up to be quite unsqueamish and averse to gambling.)

You can read about entertainment provided by Roland le Pettour in the household of Henry II or search using the appropriate button on this blog for information on several great houses and castles in Monmouthshire and beyond. 2018 could be the time to follow me on Twitter (New Year resolution?) @BarbaraDaniels6. There is an intimidating list of books I have consulted on the right of each article but here I am especially indebted to Ian Mortimer and Joseph and Frances Gies.

Bodiam Castle: the film star with the enigma

                             

   Bodiam Castle has starred in TV series and Hollywood feature films because of its aura, beauty and charisma: historians have debated if this showiness was its true purpose rather than military defence and so there is a central enigma behind the celebrity smile.

   The question would seem to be answered by a public document issued on 20th October 1385 by King Richard II to Sir Edward Dalyngrigge or Dallingridge, the owner, which gave him permission to "strengthen with a wall of stone and lime, crenellate and make into a castle his manor house at Bodiam, next to the sea, for the defence of the adjacent country and resistance to the king's enemies." The idea of such a licence  was to narrow the scope for castle building or adding battlements and meant that not every upstart could do so on a whim and thereby threaten the power of the crown. Yet Sir Edward built his castle further up the hill from his house and endowed it with features which would not have served as a strong defence but which did bring him status because of their lavish nature. Bodiam is a 10-mile march from the sea, access by the River Rother was not very threatening and Sir Edward was probably anxious to rise in society from being a knight to a member of the higher lordly aristocracy. Ownership of a castle provided that upward mobility, particularly if this possession appeared to be for the public good and safety of the realm. The licence proved to the neighbours that he was the possessor of a castle not a house.

The moat

   Ignoring the silly and demeaning bunting, one can see here that the moat emphasises the grandeur of the castle by setting it in a sea of reflections and by isolating it from surroundings that might make it look smaller. Moats were used as defensive feature because they impeded access to the walls which could be undermined if soldiers came close. Yet this one, although 6 feet deep and broad, is held in place along half its length by a dam which could be easily breached and it is not strengthened by stonework. Originally there were 6 (fish?) ponds making it part of extensive watery landscaping - hardly a military necessity - and the presence nearby of natural springs may have induced the designer (probably Henry Yevele, a royal mason) to suggest the new site, the moat etc giving the building symbolic and aesthetic appeal. Because it is not squeezed onto a rocky platform dictating its shape, the designer had a free hand to create a nearly square, regular and symmetrical plan. The weather was dull when I took these photographs but Bodiam is at its Mona Lisa best in shimmering sun or mysterious mist.

The windows etc

   You can also see that the external windows are larger than a truly military castle would have demanded: the South and East walls have huge ones and the others are vulnerable including those in the hall and the 3-light Gothic window in the chapel. The arrow-loops are narrow and awkwardly placed, the gun-openings inflexible and the murder holes through which all kinds of nastiness could be poured onto the enemy are small. The battlements, the main object of the licence, are not all full sized, being half scale on the turrets and in miniature round the rims of chimneys and on the main fireplace (why have crenellations in those places except for ornament?) The magnificent gatehouse, which boasts some of these apparently warlike features as well as twin projecting towers with machicolations, could not have had a drawbridge because of the design and, anyway, a hostile force could have attacked through the poorly defended rear Postern gate. Guests would have entered there, full of admiration after viewing the parks, farmlands and hunting grounds. Most importantly - there is no keep. Have a piece of CAKE if you had noticed!

Domestic apartments and arrangements

   Bodiam Castle rejoices in 28 en suite toilets (mostly draining into the moat) and 33 fireplaces, hospitable accessories for a family's visitors but far too lavish for a garrison. The range of domestic buildings, including pantry (French "pain"), buttery (French "bouteille") and kitchen were in the handsome central courtyard and, together with the Great Hall, placed opposite the main gate. Sir Edward's (note that I am avoiding spelling his surname!) private apartment was on the upper floor and would have been splendid, although his wealth may not have extended to tapestries, merely to painted hangings.  All would have been affluent, comfortable and classy. There is even evidence that there was a separate banqueting hall or gazebo even higher up the hill with views of the surroundings and the splendour of the castle.

Backdrop to Sir Edward's situation.

   Although in the 12th and 13th centuries the country was in turmoil, by the later 14th century the atmosphere was calmer, despite the peasants' revolting (I nearly wrote "being revolting"), rebellion against the king and a threat of dangerous French invasion by armada after their recent burning and raiding on the south coast as part of what we now call the Hundred Years' War. There is no evidence, though, that Sir Edward was terrified by this and he had made many excursions across the Channel to commit similar actions. If there were battles they were pitched in open fields rather than being castle sieges. At the moment of applying for his licence Sir Edward was facing imprisonment over his dramatic quarrel with the eminent John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, over the murder of his sub-forester, William Mouse, (love that name!) and may have suddenly wanted proven respectability. As he was from a comparatively humble background, having married a wealthy heiress and made a mint on the continent, he probably wanted to accentuate his position. His income of around £200-300 p.a. was very comfortable but not sufficient to pay for this extravaganza and, although he sold off some of his wife's lands from 1381 onwards, we may assume that some money came from foreign pillaging, ransoms and sale of captured French knights' armour (typically worth £400) in the company of Sir Robert Knolles or Knowles, who was reputed to have made 100,000 gold crowns as a mercenary and whose arms are displayed over the Postern gate. (Consistency of spelling became a fetish much later - in the 18th century.)

The full Monty - though not necessarily French

Summary
   Not only is Bodiam Castle alluring in its beauty but it raises intriguing questions about the definition and function of castles in the late 14th century as well as causing some disquiet about the chivalry of knights such as Sir Edward. Chaucer's portrait of the knight in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales has been taken at face value as the picture of a perfect chivalrous gentleman of roughly this period but has been proved definitively - in my opinion - by Terry Jones to be a scathing description of a ruthless mercenary. Sir Edward was not of that ilk but may have built his fantasy castle on some ill-gotten gains, at least considered by modern standards. It was later owned and restored by John Fuller, George Cubitt and Lord Curzon. I bet they didn't string up manky bunting. You can play at spot-the-W.W.II-pill-box on your way out: use the loos nearby on your way in - go before you go.

    My keen-eyed readers will have clocked that Bodiam is far from the Welsh Marches and its buses but there are interesting contrasts and comparisons with castles there: it is similar to stunning Raglan Castle in being a Toff's residence and very different from isolated White Castle whose purpose was entirely military. The vast Caerphilly Castle is also enlarged and mirrored by lakes which are truly defensive. An earlier fortress such as imposing Chepstow Castle conforms to the linear structure of the threatening cliffs and was built to emphasise Norman political power whereas the designer of Bodiam had a free space to exploit as he chose and probably was instructed to underline personal prestige. Another Welsh connection is that, in the 1380's, the great magnate, the Earl of Arundel, put sir Edward in charge of his estates in Wales. My verdict on the main debate is that it was built as a castle, looks like a castle and so is a castle and that Sir Edward of the unpronounceable surname just wanted to indulge himself with a seductive folly. The rest of us will have to be content with CAKE.

For opening times and activities and a chance to complain about the bunting click here.

Five Fascinating Facts about Farting in the Fourteenth Century - give or take a century or three

  Next time you are in the Great Hall of a castle you might like to ponder on the type of entertainment that created merriment before kings.

1) Roland le Pettour
   King Henry II (probably he, though some say earlier kings) had a favourite minstrel called Roland who was rewarded handsomely for his ability to perform "unum saltum et siffletum et unum bombulum" [one leap and whistle and one fart] as part of the Christmas entertainment. It seems he managed to achieve these three requirements in one act called a "tripudium" and for this valued talent he was given a serjeanty, a land-holding of 30 acres. It has been stated that the land passed down the generations provided that the heirs could earn it in the time-honoured fashion of this particular hat-trick.
  The salary of land was later transmuted into a monetary payment by King Henry III (possibly), because of the indecency, when cash was cheaper than land. One feels that such a brief exhibition by Roland must have been heralded by a massive build up of excitement in the court. Yet some records state that he could also play tunes in this manner to prolong the fun. (William Camden, however, in 1610, identifies this minstrel as Baldwin and comments, "Such was the plaine and jolly mirth of those times"). Roland seems then to have disappeared into obscurity: perhaps he broke a leg or maybe he ran out of steam - as it were.


2) Etymology
  You will have cleverly deduced that the word "bombulum" means "fart" and it derives from the Latin for "to buzz", "bombinare". The native English word "fart", Middle English "ferte" (Anglo-Saxon "feorting") and the French "pet", from which Roland's name is taken, co-existed for some time in the 13th to 15th centuries but, once English had re-established itself as the official language, the French term died out. Yet you may want to pause before sipping your glass of "pétillant" wine.
  Chaucer's Summoner's Tale has a play on the word "ferthing" meaning both "farthing" and "farting" with the ultimate puzzle of how a fart can be divided into 12 equal parts. The Miller's Tale also hinges on this explosive deed.  It was not wholly a rude word: a Portuguese fart was a kind of pastry puff and there was a puffball which "pete en se crevant", dispensing a fine and smelly dust as it burst.

3) Queen Elizabeth I
    Moving outside our wide period there is a story too good to miss. Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, (1550-1604) accidentally broke wind whilst bowing to the queen and was so ashamed that he went abroad for seven years. When he returned, Elizabeth was delighted to see him and greeted him with the warm and friendly (though not wholly convincing) reassurance: "My Lord, I had forgott the Fart."

4) Gender Difference etc
   In the literature of the Middle Ages, involuntary passing of wind was regarded as a woman's flaw and this was connected with the anti-feminist belief that women were incontinent, incapable of chastity and of low status. This was in consequence of Eve's lack of restraint in the Garden of Eden. In men the controlled fart was a sign of potent virility. Perhaps this is the reason for its intrusion into the innocent song "Sumer is icomen in" where we have the delightfully cheery: the "buck verteth" in which I believe you can note a Germanic consonantal shift from "f" to "v". In the Medieval theatre devils were notorious for their ability to expel air from their lower quarters and frequently did so raspingly on leaving the stage. In revenge it was believed that if one returned the compliment, the devil would flee.

5) Medicines

   Not, as you might imagine, to cure flatulence but to provoke it, there were substances recommended in the popular Book of Secrets, though these do have the air of a practical joke. You could pluck a hair from near an ass's private parts and give it to your victim in wine or crush ants' eggs in water and administer them likewise. A more complicated method was to wrap the dried blood of a snail in a linen cloth so that it made a wick and ask someone to light it, thus producing an unstoppable attack. As Camden said: "jolly mirth" would have ensued.

[I am indebted to Valerie Allen's scholarly work On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages for most of this reliably sourced information.] Great Halls to stimulate your imagination can be visited at Chepstow Castle, Raglan Castle and Caldicot Castle. Castle lovers should hang in here as my next post will be about Goodrich Castle where I am sure Countess Joan was in full control.
 

Three presentations of Courtly Love: Andreas Capellanus, Chaucer and Shakespeare

The Concept of Courtly Love
   Each time I visit a castle I think of this ideology. Whatever it was and whether or not it was carried out in practice, Courtly Love was not like the innocent and cheerful affection seen in this image.
   We believe the concept to have started in the 11th century in the South of France and, as it developed in Troubadour poetry and other writings, it became complex and differentiated. To summarise briefly: there were four cornerstones of Humility, Courtesy, Adultery and the Religion of Love; the male was always abject, obedient to every wish or whim of the lady; accepting of her rebukes; despairing, sick and sorrowing. Yet he has faith in the God of Love who will not betray his fidelity and might tame the wilful beauty. Meanwhile he practises a form of noble and elegant courtesy, typical of the higher classes.
   It was a kind of tragic madness with a code of service modelled on the feudal system. The lover was often of more lowly status and the devoted slave of a married and unobtainable lady whom he believed he served. For her he suffered a  malady, rendering him thin and pale, prone to writing verse or songs and on the verge of expiring. The lady's refusal was seen as cruelty for which he might die - though we might remember that this word also designated orgasm.
      Love entered through the eyes and the arrow pierced the heart. Secrecy was at its centre and its progress or otherwise was marked by frustrations, tasks, quests and obstacles and yet it was perceived as an educative and ennobling experience. Any factual basis may lie in the situation of lordly households containing young men in training, too poor to marry and few women - with the master away on a crusade. It is difficult to ascertain what actually happened or if this notion was merely the material of poetry.

Andreas Capellanus
   In the twelfth century he wrote of the rules of Courtly Love. I have cherry-picked a few of these: "It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing"; "When made public love rarely endures"; "Every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved"; "When a lover suddenly catches sight of his beloved his heart palpitates"; "He whom the thought of love vexes eats and sleeps very little"; "Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved"; "A true lover is constantly and without intermission possessed by the thought of his beloved." (Translation by J.J. Parry)

Thanks to Debora B. Schwartz 

Geoffrey Chaucer
   There is much to be said about Chaucer's treatments of this theme but I will mention 3 from The Canterbury Tales.
   The Knight's Tale tells of two knights, Palamon and Arcite, who both fall in love with Emelye, instantly, on first seeing her: "And therwithal he bleynte [blenched, started back] and cride, 'A!'" is the reaction of Palamon, as though he were stung in the heart. Despite not knowing her and, in Arcite's case, restricting his "service" to "crueel torment ... peyne and wo", not sleeping, drinking or eating so that he became "lene" with hollow eyes and pale complexion, and wailing all night, the men allow their passion to destroy their friendship and the tale ends in terrible slaughter in a tournament. The Knight may be a mercenary, misunderstanding courtly conduct. (See Terry Jones' book.)
   In The Franklin's Tale there is a happy marriage, set in Brittany, but, when the knight Arveragus who has wooed and won Dorigen in courtly fashion through woe, pain and distress coupled with great enterprises, goes abroad, a potentially adulterous relationship intrudes. The marriage had been perfect but Aurelius has been watching from the wings, suffering, writing a great many songs in different formats and languishing in the prescribed manner. A tale of promises and magic ensues which ends in resolution owing to the "gentillesse" [nobility of spirit] of Arveragus. The Franklin is attempting to describe noble behaviour from his own lower rank.
   On a lighter note, Chaucer satirises the notion of Courtly Love in The Miller's Tale. Here the wife, Alison, has a relationship with a clerk, Nicholas, who grabbed her by her private parts to woo her - successfully. She is loved from afar by Absolom, a clever, talented and stylish man who happens to be squeamish about farting. One night he sees a chance of making love to Alison and climbs a ladder so to do - but she sticks her bottom out of the window to receive his kiss. This hairy encounter with the real puts a brake on his passion and he plans vengeance with a hot ploughshare. This time, Nicholas pokes his behind out of the window and farts but Absolom, despite being nearly blinded in the blast, has his iron at the ready. Chaos ensues. This fabliau [vulgar tale] is obviously a coarse but hilarious parody of the refinements of Courtly Love.

William Shakespeare

Image by dramatica.
The rose was a symbol of the lady
and her sexuality
in the allegorical Roman de la Rose

  It is easy to forget that, at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is in love with another woman, Rosaline. He is reported as behaving like the traditional courtly lover: waking early to walk and weep in a grove of sycamores (the symbolic tree of melancholy lovers), going home at dawn to retire to a dark room and being "so secret and so close" that he resembles a bud bitten by a worm. When he enters, he presents himself as the rejected suitor of a woman who has vowed chastity, and talks in poetic paradoxes such as "cold fire" and "sick health". He stresses his grief, uses hyperbole and speaks of a "madness most discreet" - and yet Shakespeare hints at the falsity of his pose by having him suddenly demand: "Where shall we dine?" Courtly love is shown here in contrast to the real, mutual and consummated love he has for Juliet, the sight of whom drives Rosaline from his mind.

Conclusion
  The concept had a long and wide-ranging life and we may well ask ourselves if it has ever truly died: are there echoes still in our century in songs and poems of elements of the code?
   After reading about such self-denying conduct you may fancy a large slice of CAKE or visit a castle where the addiction to Courtly Love may have held sway, perhaps those that were more of a residence than a fortification. I suggest Raglan Castle or Caldicot Castle.

No courtly lover would have eaten this!