Elves and Apparitions at the Angevin Court

Sir Galahad encounters Symen in a forest, BL Royal 14 E III, f.85

The men and women of the Angevin court were fascinated by the supernatural. They told stories of demons and spirits, whose shadowy realm loitered at the edge of their own. Such beings stalked the darkness, crossing into the land of men to warn, to plead and, occasionally, to love. Not only courtiers but kings, we might assume, listened to tales of these trespasses, especially when they concerned their own. What did Henry II think of the wanderings of Herla? This King of the Britons had been hosted by the ruler of the dwarfs in his cavern palace in the cliffs, only on emerging to be told of an ancient king sharing his name who had disappeared into the dwarfish realm, whose people had been swept away by Saxons two hundred years before. Herla, it was said, was condemned to rove forever with his retinue, although he had not been sighted since Henry took the throne.

Stories such as these were gathered by Walter Map, one of Henry’s court, in his De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers’ Trifles). Walter told another supernatural tale and this one, too, touched on a royal predecessor, for the ethereal being it described had been entertained by William the Conqueror himself – or William the Bastard, as Walter names him.

A ‘story is told about Edric Wilde, a so-called “man of the woods” ... One night when he was returning late from hunting, accompanied only by a boy, he lost his way. About midnight, wandering in search of the path, he came upon a great house on the edge of a wood ... he looked in and saw a band of many noble women. They were most beautiful in appearance and were elegantly clad in robes of the finest linen. They were taller and more stately than our women. They moved about with an airy motion, with pleasing gestures and hushed voices. The sound they made was melodious but faint, and he could not understand their speech. The knight noticed one among them whose beauty far exceeded the others ... [he] received a wound in his heart. He found it hard to endure the pain of Cupid’s dart...

Eadric paid no heed to the danger of the ghostly company. He went around the house and, finding the entrance, rushed in and seized the lady whom he desired ... He took his pleasure with her for three days and nights, but in all that time, he was unable to get a word from her, although she passively submitted to his love. Finally, on the fourth day, she said: “My dear one, you shall be safe and joyful ... until the time when you reproach me because of my sisters ... [then] your happiness will disappear ..."

Eadric promised to be firm and faithful in his love ... [and] solemnly married the lady. William the Bastard, recently crowned King of England, was then reigning; and the monarch, hearing of this marvel, and wishing to test its truth, summoned both the man and wife to his court in London. They brought with them many witnesses, and also the evidence of others who could not be present. But the woman herself, who was of a beauty which had never been seen or heard of until that time, was the chief proof of her fairy nature. Amidst general astonishment, Edric and his wife were sent back to their home.’

Things did not end well for Edric who one day, in fleeting irritation, reproved his wife with mention of her sisters. The lady disappeared, leaving only ‘empty air’, and ‘for all his crying and lamenting, he could not win her back.’

What Henry II took from this account we can only guess. Perhaps he gleaned its warning of the dangers of submitting to one's lust. This was an apt lesson, one might think, for almost any Norman or Angevin king – and especially the likes of Henry II, his grandfather, and his youngest son – whose appetites were seemingly boundless. Or, perhaps, the king simply marvelled at the image of his conquering ancestor, with England at his feet, entertaining elves at the royal court. 

Review: 'The Greatest Knight: William Marshal' (BBC 2), presented by Dr Thomas Asbridge

This blog is contributed by Dr Simon John, Departmental Lecturer in Early Medieval History, University of Oxford

Dr Thomas Asbridge

Following hot on the heels of the first instalment of Robert Bartlett’s BBC series on the Plantagenets comes another BBC production, ‘The Greatest Knight: William Marshal’, a documentary presented by Thomas Asbridge. Marshall, Asbridge tells us at the outset, is a ‘forgotten hero of our history’. While this assertion is sure to have induced puzzlement among students of the Middle Ages, it may be interpreted as a sign that Asbridge’s efforts are targeted at a general audience.

 

Much of what was covered in last night’s documentary is well-trodden ground, in some cases quite literally so, given that several of the locations visited by Asbridge, including the tomb of Henry II at Fontevraud, the hall of the ducal palace in Poitiers, and the castle of Le Mans, all featured in the first episode of Bartlett’s Plantagenets series. The chronological scope of Asbridge’s documentary – from the middle of the twelfth century during the reign of King Stephen down to the Magna Carta crisis – is also the same as Bartlett’s first episode. More striking, however, is the proximity between Asbridge’s documentary and Saul David’s 2008 Timewatch special on William Marshal. The 2014 and 2008 productions share a title (‘The Greatest Knight’). Like David, Asbridge took a New York cab to the Morgan Library in order to consult the manuscript containing the History of William Marshall. Asbridge spoke to the same curator (one William Voelkle) featured in the Timewatch episode, and even highlighted a passage in the History to which David had drawn attention (that wherein the young Marshall is described as lazy and greedy). In terms of presenting style, Asbridge is more of a Bartlett than a David. Whereas David’s documentary featured ‘talking head’ interjections from prominent scholars including David Crouch and David Carpenter, Asbridge, like Bartlett, generally eschews that approach. The difference between the presenting styles of Asbridge and David are manifest in other ways. David sought to try and see the world through Marshal’s eyes by donning armour and taking part in a joust. Asbridge in contrast, limited himself to a careful twirl of one of the Wallace Collection’s oldest swords. To do so, he had to don blue surgical gloves, and contend with a curator hawkishly watching over him.

Given the familiarity of the subject matter of this documentary, then, did Asbridge succeed in putting his own stamp on proceedings? In one important respect, he did. He accomplished this by placing the History of William Marshall (‘a priceless window into the Medieval world’) at the very heart of his enquiry. When introducing the History near the outset, Asbridge pointed out that historians must interpret this text as a literary construction written to project a carefully tailored image of its subject. He acknowledges that the historical Marshall and the characterisation of him in the History are not necessarily one and the same. (The extent to which the latter can be disaggregated from the former is a matter that often vexes modern scholars). In conversation with the Morgan Library’s curator, Asbridge even adduces some of the salient details regarding the circumstances of the History’s provenance and reception. This is an approach which exhibits a high level of trust in the audience’s critical ability. It is not typical of a primetime documentary intended for airing on the BBC, and is all the more admirable for it.

 

The hour unfolded with Asbridge tracing the course of Marshal’s life, pointing out certain moments wherein he appears to have acted out of a desire to conform to the contemporary martial ethos which governed knightly behaviour – or, as Asbridge called it, chivalry. While academics might take issue over what ‘chivalry’ consisted of in the age of William Marhsall, and the extent to which it actually did have a bearing on the thoughtworld of the warriors of that period, it would have overcomplicated matters to have done so in this context. Asbridge’s interest focussed chiefly on Marshal’s role in the high politics of his age. The choice to open and close the documentary at Westminster was deliberate; for Asbridge, the ‘greatest revelation of William Marshal’s life’ were the attempts by men of his ilk to limit royal power, which played a part, his argument went, in the development of the system of governance under which we in Britain presently live. There is perhaps no audience better qualified than those who read this blog to discuss how that claim squares with Marshal’s vigorous attempts to shore up royal authority over the rebellious barons of England during the first years of Henry III’s minority after John’s death in 1216.

Review: The Plantagenets (Episode 1. The Devil's Brood)

Professor Robert Bartlett

This post is contributed by Dr Kathryn Dutton, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Manchester

An enduring dynasty of fifteen English kings descended from a malevolent demon countess of Anjou: this was the opening, complete with menacing crows and interior shots of Gothic churches, to Prof. Robert Bartlett’s first episode of The Plantagenets, dedicated to the ‘Devil’s Brood’ of Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their sons. Bartlett took us swiftly from the marriage of the Empress Matilda to Count Geoffrey of Anjou – the first ‘Plantagenet’ – in 1128, to Magna Carta and the death of King John in 1216. Along the way, Bartlett set out what made the early Plantagenets distinctive: on one hand, the rapid construction in the 1150s of an ‘Empire’ stretching from northern England to southern France, the resuscitation of English fortunes after the ‘Anarchy’ of King Stephen’s reign, and the legal reforms of Henry II, which laid the foundations for the Common Law; on the other, he told a dramatic story of discord and conflict between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, evoked the sorry image of a humiliated and hair-shirted Henry II being flogged by the English clergy after the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, and outlined the reigns of first an absent king, Richard Lionheart, and then a failed king, John. The hour closed with Bartlett walking away from the camera, down an exposed dirt track in the marshy wilds of the Wash, where King John famously lost men, horses and treasure just days before his death.

Bartlett’s style (and that of his production team) is familiar from his previous BBC series Inside the Medieval Mind and The Normans, and the substance of what he presented will be equally of no surprise to historians. Yet the subject matter is inherently engaging, and what made the programme particularly attractive was its varied and well-chosen locations, which included not only obvious though spectacular suspects (Canterbury Cathedral, Fontevraud) but also sites which lent the story further drama and unexpected humanity (the shrine to Saint Radegonde carved into the rock beneath Chinon, for example, with its fresco of members of the dynasty). The choice of many of these locations reflected Bartlett’s success in characterising the Plantagenets as, in essence, foreigners. Yet while the story was well told and the production lavish, something rankled. Bartlett stuck fast to a narrative which, while scholarly, was tangibly traditional. Women like the Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine were ‘enraged princesses’ and schemers; although shorthand and character portraits are necessary in an overview like this, Bartlett’s account does not compare favourably with other recent BBC programmes which touch upon these themes, such as Helen Castor’s She-Wolves (the first episode of which looked at Matilda and Eleanor) or Michael Wood’s King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons, both of which dug deeper into the motivations of both women and men, the latter through the use of an outstanding group of talking heads, including Jinty Nelson and Ryan Lavelle.

Such shortcomings make sense: in this episode, nearly a century of history was condensed into a single hour. Yet while this is a standard account of the early Plantagenets – one which will be familiar to any undergraduate student who has studied the dynasty – Bartlett and the BBC (no doubt prompted by the discovery of the body of Richard III, the ‘last Plantagenet’, in a Leicester car park in 2013) should be applauded for bringing the history of such a dynamic group of rulers to the attention of a public battered by the much better-known history of the Plantagenets’ successors, the Tudors. Enthusiasts have much to look forward to in the next programme, and can be assured that while the account given might at time lack the cutting edge of the newest research developments, it will be accurate, perceptive and engaging.

Christmas at the Court of King John

With the season of Advent underway, many of us will be frantically planning our Christmas celebrations. There’s the food for Christmas lunch (have I bought enough? Do I have enough plates for everyone?), the booze (how sozzled do we plan to get?) and of course, the tricky issue of presents (what on earth do I buy the mother-in-law?). In the thirteenth century, King John and Henry III faced similar problems.

King John had to plan Christmas Day at least a week in advance because of the large quantities of food required for his feast. Once the king had decided where he would spend Christmas Day, a command would be sent to the local sheriff ordering him to rustle-up the necessary supplies. There would be hundreds of mouths to feed, so this was no easy task – in fact King John’s shopping list puts our Christmas-shopping nightmares in the shade. In 1206, an order was dispatched to the sheriff of Hampshire on 13 December to find 1,500 hens, 5,000 eggs, 20 cattle, 100 pigs and 100 sheep for the king’s Christmas festivities at the royal palace of Winchester. Thankfully for the sheriff of Hampshire, the task of ordering the table settings was delegated to his colleague in Wiltshire, who had to procure 500 ells of linen for making tablecloths.

In 1213, the task of organising King John’s Christmas feast at Windsor castle was even more daunting. Reginald de Cornhill, in charge of purchasing luxury goods for the royal household, was presented with an epic shopping list and barely a week to fulfil the order. No Christmas feast would be complete without plenty of booze, so the king would need wine: 20 tuns of good and new ordinary wine, both French and Gascon, and 4 tuns of the best stuff that Reginald could lay his hands on (2 of red, 2 of white) for the king’s table. Then there was the food: 200 pigs’ heads with all the pickled pork, 1,000 hens, 50 pounds of pepper, 2 pounds of saffron, 100 pounds of good fresh almonds and 15,000 herrings, as well as spices for making sauces, two dozen towels and 1,000 ells of linen for making tablecloths. But even this huge order would not suffice for the royal feast and so other officials were tasked with finding another 200-odd pigs’ heads, 15,000 more hens as well as 10,000 salted eels and all the pitchers, cups and dishes that would be needed to serve the diners.

How much did this all cost? It’s hard to say, because no household rolls survive for King John’s reign (we have two misae rolls, listing the king’s diverse expenses, but they hardly include anything in terms of Yuletide procurement). But some household rolls do survive from the reign of John’s son, Henry III, and these reflect a dramatic increase in spending at Christmas time. While the normal daily spend for the royal household in 1225 was £6 or £7, the cost of food, drink and other provisions (wax, firewood etc.) for Christmas Eve and Day at Winchester that year was over £51.

And this is all before one takes into account the king’s spending on gifts for family and servants. King John was famous for his largesse and was generous in providing robes for his men. At Christmas in 1214, he kitted out 7 knights, 6 serjeants, the royal chaplains and 13 other members of the household in robes of green. John was also keen to ensure that all of his men were properly looked after. When one of his crossbowmen, Hugh, fell ill on Christmas Eve 1205 during the Christmas festivities at Oxford, John ordered the local sheriff to find 12 pence per day for Hugh’s convalescence and to provide Hugh with 20 shillings for robes. The presentation of robes was an important demonstration of the king’s largesse and complaints were voiced in 1250 when Henry III, scrimping on gifts in an effort to save up for his planned crusade, failed to distribute any robes or jewels (then as now, even when times were tough people still expected a good show). In 1242, though, Henry had wisely put his best efforts into a suitably splendid gift for his mother in law. Henry had married Eleanor of Provence in 1236 and, when her mother Beatrice visited at Christmas 1242, Henry was clearly eager to impress. He commissioned his tailors to make a robe of the ‘best scarlet cloth that can be found in the city of London’ for Beatrice’s Christmas present. Obviously concerned that this would be deemed insufficient, Henry also gave Beatrice a £400 annual fee for six years and presented her, on New Year’s Day, with a golden figure of an eagle (representing her family’s emblem) inlaid with precious stones, at the cost of some £100.

How did King John spend Christmas Day itself? His father, Henry II, had hosted a famously ribald court, whose annual Christmas entertainment included a display of leaping, whistling and farting by one Roland the Farter. But it is hard to imagine that there was much time for fun and games at John’s Christmas court. There was some sort of joshing display put on by the archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, in which he pretended to outdo the king in largesse when he handed out robes to his men. But otherwise it was business as usual – on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the king continued to receive payment of debts, which must have taken the edge off Christmas cheer. In any case, King John hardly spent enough time in one place to spin out the Christmas fun. His itinerary (a new version of which is underway as part of the Magna Carta Project) shows that he hardly spent more than a day or two at his chosen Christmas residence before he was off again on his endless toing and froing around the kingdom.

How were John’s Yuletide celebrations received? Given the financial pressures John placed on his kingdom, especially after the loss of Normandy in 1204, one might have thought that his extravagant (and no doubt expensive) Christmas festivities might have earned him criticism. Yet displays of royal generosity were a key part of medieval politics and so John’s largesse, unlike other aspects of his rule, was recorded approvingly by chroniclers:

‘he spent lavishly; he gave plenty to eat, and did so generously and willingly. People never found the gate or the doors of John’s hall barred against them, so that all who wanted to eat at his court could do so. At the three great feasts he gave robes aplenty to his knights. This was a good quality of his.’ (Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d’Angleterre, translated by John Gillingham).