Favorite blog posts of 2013

I talked last year about my selection being haphazard; haphazard the  selection is again. I note that the blog tended to suffer because I have  been so busy otherwise.

Knightly humility

One of the most notable  characteristics of the medieval knight was his pride, pride that made him unwilling to back down from a challenge; pride that could lead  to serious trouble through overreaching.

Sometimes, however, pride was disavowed and humility was paraded before a given knight's audience. An interesting example of how lords and high ranking warriors, men full of justifiable pride in their accomplishments and family connection – we should think – end up talking poor can be found in the Chronicle of the Good Duke.

The incident took place at the tail end of the siege of Mahdia in North Africa, a place that the French attackers simply called "Africa." There'd been a lot of fighting around this desirable city, with the French and Genoese scoring some victories but not even coming close to taking the city. In other words the confrontation was going nowhere and it was time to go.

The good Duke Louis of Bourbon decided to take counsel from his chief men and his Genoese allies.

"Sire, the city is marvelously strong as you see it is very well supplied with men; there are these Kings with very great troops who in our opinion will not move to the field and for nothing that you can do will they give battle. And they put us in delay to make us eat up all our food. Also in our ships is neither siege engines nor rock throwers nor any engine to take to the wall; our siege tower is burnt and the falcon beaks are exhausted so we don't know what to say about this."

 The Duke said "there is only one thing more to do" and so the Genoese spoke about the matter to the other patrons of Genoa and the captains of the galleys came to seek a treaty with the Africans ... The Duke of Bourbon put all the chivalry French and English together to know whether this treaty was honorable or not. And standing in the Council there were the Duke of Bourbon who wished that the souldich d'Estrau -- who was one of the oldest of the Army and one of the most valiant knights one could find --should speak first and be asked his advice about it; the souldich said that there was no reason that he should speak about it first and he had not seen anything in this time that however you it was going to speak loyally that which he knew of it, and that when he had seen like this in his time according to which he did not wish to praise himself facing that this was the most remarkable thing he had found himself during his life, to have awaited in the field against the power of three Kings for two and half months assailed the town, before them without having sent remedy and since have gone to attack their tents, throwing them out by force,  this is a much greater thing than the greatest battle that one could ever see. And about the treaty the souldich said further "that which those of Africa offer, it is also as honorable as if the town had been taken for you put them in truce and in servitude which they were not able to refuse even in the presence of all their power."The souldich said further,"I who am nothing but a poor Chevalier, I hold this thing as honorable as though I had been in three battles"  

After the souldich, Jeannicot d'Ortenie an Englishman one of the valiant Knights known anywhere said he held to the opinion of the souldich d'Estrau that certainly he did not know about it except to repeat it. Afterwards the Lord of Clifford chief of the English came, who said when asked that he held to the statement of the the souldich and that was the opinion of the English. So it happened after that the Duke of Bourbon asked the advice of count of Eu who told him "Sire it appears to me that the things that have been done are so great and good up to now and the treaty so honorable you ought not to refuse it."

After the Lord of Couci spoke who said plainly to the Duke, "Monseigneur, the voyage is so grand and so honorable for you and for all those have been on it and one cannot say better about such power as of the three Kings and the great things which you have done. For they did not dare defy you, they have lost every day and  you have had the advantage moreover have taken their lodgings from them, this amounts in honor to a good battle, and it is a bad defeat for them.  After you have the treaty, so grand, by which they are so strongly enslaved whereby you are able to leave honorably as though you had taken the town. And with such power as you see before us and also, Monseigneur, your people have a lack of supplies, and there are at it many diseases from which you may lose many, because or you have been there too long; and it will be a remaining without reason for you have the best treaty that now is possible to have for you and your company." Afterwards the judgment of the Count of Eu was asked who said that after the Lord of Couci he had nothing to alter. Also the sire of Granville, who held their opinion and the sire of St. George, the sire of Castillon and all other chevaliers which there were many.

It seems to me that this is a very ambiguous situation. Has the expedition been a failure or success? The Duke of Bourbon asked around the leading lights of his Army hoping for their seal of approval on his behavior -- everyboy knows he has to leave -- which he gets. But note that they seem to be somewhat reluctant to put all their prestige behind the Duke's plans and accomplishments. So you have extremely experienced and high ranking warriors saying, "I think we accomplished a lot… But what do I know, humble Chevalier that I am?

Troubador poetry and chivalry

 When I teach chivalry in the classroom, I do talk about its relationship to love (really! I swear!) but this remarkable website has convinced me that I have missed a bet by not just jumping in and rolling around.

This poem, for instance, evokes a whole social environment and the stinging criticism of one knight disappointed with the way life treats his kind (though it  serves some of them right.)

Some of the poet's targets knew exactly who he was talking about -- them -- and knew that everyone else did, too.

 At the first onset of winter, by Marcabru

At the first onset of winter,
when the acorns fall like rain the wood,
I want people to strive
towards Prowess, without hesitation,
and that they are as eager to achieve it
as if we were in the grassy season.

    Well then, every lesser man complains
when he sees the cold weather and the puddles,
which make him grumble
because he has to get ready and start bargaining,
while, in the Summer, he doesn't need to be dressed
and can go around naked except for a rag.

    These types resemble the badger
in the evening, when they are full and sated,
after the wine,
and, in the morning, they have lost all memory,
these ashen cowards, who swear
one has never seen such an ugly time.

    Young men of handsome appearance
I see, deceived by wickedness,
because they go boasting,
they say, planning a thousand projects,
"We'll do [this], in the flowery season",
but, then, the bragging and noise stop.

    They have the habits of a hound dog,
who says that, when the light comes,
he'll build a house
then, when it is there, if one urges him to deliver,
he isn't listened to, nor heard:
as far as it concerns him, wood was never worked.

    Husbands, you would be the best people
in the world, but each of you turns into a lover,
which confounds you,
and the cnts have put themselves on the market,
so Youth is banned far away,
and one dubs you cuckolds for it.

    The price of the profit and loss,
wherever it may have come from,
it's married men who bear it!
And I have granted it to them
for Joy is celebrated among them,
and largesse somewhat maintained.

    Right or wrong, they have the upper hand,
and Youth concedes defeat!
Most young people, and the best among them,
hardly find [women] who receive them,
one of them had his hat blown away by shouted abuse
for a morsel that was thrown to him.

Living in the material world

Imagine George Harrison and Madonna singing their different versions on the same stage!

Long ago a good friend of mine, Sandra Dodd, drew my attention to a book with the title “Material World”. It was a select survey, pictorially oriented, of living conditions in about two dozen countries around the world. One notable feature was that each family brought all their property out of the house arranged it neatly, and then sat behind their pile of things to have their picture taken. The poorest country in the survey was Mali, and they had next to nothing except various pottery containers. The Americans had a great deal of stuff. The contrast was shocking, as it was meant to be.

When we moved out of Ravenhill, we became that American family. The stuff! Ye gods, the stuff!

There are a lot of excuses that can be offered. As several people have pointed out, if you live in the same location for 22 years of course you’re going to have a lot of stuff. We have a hobby, the Society for Creative Anachronism, that requires a serious player to have clothing, tents, and other props. For a while we ran a bit of a farm, with horses, sheep and poultry. But still…

Even though we are not big shoppers, not really hoarders either, not particularly rich, our move to smaller quarters, a house already full of its own furniture and appliances, put us in the position of throwing away huge and astonishing array of… Things.

We left most of our furniture and all of our major appliances for the buyers, for whom this is the first house. And still…

We were put in the onerous and to me rather depressing situation of throwing out the evidence of the past half-century or so of our lives. It was that, or apply to the federal government for a huge grant for the Muhlberger National Museum (and be rejected of course).

I have to admit that much of the stuff came down to me. Not even counting stuff in my office at the University, I had tremendous amount of paper associated with academic projects that I have either finished or abandoned. I had an amazing amount of paperwork associated with the SCA in Ontario in the 1970s and 80s (mostly). I had to very determinedly ask myself if I would ever look at this particular pile of paper again. If not, out it went.

It was more difficult in some ways to deal with the books. Again, the question asked was will any of us ever read this book again? The alternatives here were not keep or throw, but keep or find some alternative to throwing. I took boxes and boxes to the University and got rid of a great many serious and frivolous volumes  there. Otherwise, they went to a thrift shop/recycling depot called Rebuilt Resources. How many of them they threw out I don’t want to know. It was hard enough to get rid of those old friends, those pocket universes, those enjoyable but not classic science fiction novels that are basically unavailable, relics of an almost lost popular culture. (The book covers, especially from the early 60s, preserve a style of abstract illustration found nowhere else!)

And when I was done with all of this, and the sale of Ravenhill was concluded, I went to my office at Nipissing University and got rid of  about half the stuff that was stored there.

This whole process took a psychic toll on me. Lots of questions were raised,   like what on earth was I thinking. Well, I was probably thinking that I would live forever and didn’t want to lose track of anything that happened to me, especially if it was pleasant. And after all I am a historian. The great purge forced me to wrestle with these attitudes.  It shows the state that I was in during much of it that I took comfort in the idea that if we were in a car crash and killed, it would all have to go anyway. Comfort, eh?

You young whippersnappers, take a lesson from this. You might just maybe want to start cutting down your possessions now instead of having to do it at some very inconvenient time in the future.

Or at least slow down your pace of acquisition.

Worlds of Arthur, by Guy Halsall

I know Guy Halsall and correspond with him fairly frequently. I think he's a very good historian. So when he wrote a book with a riproaring commercial title like "Worlds of Arthur" it was only a matter of time before I got around to having a look.

Frankly, I don't know how commercial this book is, or how much impact it will have on even the more serious readers among the general public, namely the people who actually shell out their own money to read books on serious subjects like post-Roman Britain and King Arthur. Certainly Halsall tries very hard to reach those people, and does a much better job than most academics do on similar projects. But the book is a thorough debunking of certain ideas about Arthur and his place in history, and is already provoking a mixed reaction.

Halsall believes that trying to find the real Arthur behind the legends is entirely futile, and he classifies most efforts to do so as pseudo-history.  It is possible that somebody named Arthur led British forces against Saxon invaders, but the simple truth is that we know nothing about any such person and can't  reconstruct his life and career. The few written sources we have for this two-century period (410-597) does not allow us to do it and unless some miraculous discovery turns up new information (and none has appeared for many centuries) we will never find Arthur. A lot of professional historians agree with this, but I doubt that anyone has made such an uncompromising presentation of this fact – the unknowability of Arthur – as Halsall does here. 


Halsall is equally interested in revising a framework that scholars of the past have imposed on our understanding of post-Roman Britain. To simplify, Halsall does not think that British history of the fifth and sixth centuries is best understood as a fight between "the Britons" and "the Saxons," a long contest which resulted in the expulsion of Britons from most of what is now England. In line with developments in other parts of Western Europe, English ethnic identity came to dominate because older identities, specifically the Roman identity, were no longer relevant to a Britain where the Roman economy and society had collapsed.

Halsall both discusses changes in our interpretation of British archaeology over the last 40 years, and offers his own reinterpretation, which he frankly labels as speculative. It's an interesting interpretation and one I find fairly persuasive, though in this period we will never have certainty.

One of the best things about this book is that Halsall discusses how people use and misuse evidence for difficult historical problems in great detail. This may put people off, but it is one of the most transparent discussions of what historians do in interpreting the often difficult to understand early Middle Ages that I've ever seen. It is not likely to be everybody's cup of tea. But have a look at this discussion of DNA evidence and how it can deceive, especially people who want to be deceived.

Even with these data, an even more serious problem concerns the move from DNA to conclusions about ethnic or political identity. Ethnic identity is multi-layered. It is deployed (or not) in particular situation as the occasion demands, and can be changed. DNA cannot give you a sense of all the layers of that person's ethnicity, or of which she thought the most important, or even if she generally used a completely different one, or when and where such identities are stressed or concealed. A male Saxon immigrant into the Empire in, say, the fourth century, would – one assumes – have DNA revealing the area where he grew up, but he would probably increasingly see himself, and act, as a Roman. Saxon origins would have little part in his social, cultural, or political life, and even less for his children, if they stay in the Empire. If he returned home with the cachet of his Imperial service, it might have been his Roman identity that gave him local status. He might even have called himself a Roman. However, if a distant male relative moved to Britain 150 years later, his DNA might be very similar but, in complete distinction, he might make a very big deal of the Saxon origins. They would, or could, propel him to the upper echelons of society. DNA tells us nothing about any of this. What is pernicious about this use of genetic data is its essentialism. It views a person's identity as one-dimensional, unchanging, and as entirely derived from that person's biological and geographical origins. In short, it reduces identity to something similar to 19th century nationalist ideas of race. Everyone sane knows that people moved from northern Germany to Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. In that sense, these expensive analyses tell us nothing we do not already know. In their implicit reduction of identity to a form of race, masking all the other contingent and interesting aspects of cultural interaction and identity-change they risk setting back the understanding of this period by more than a century. Moreover, they provide pseudo-historical and pseudo-scientific ammunition for present-day nationalists xenophobes and racists.

If you teach history, wouldn't you want your students to be exposed to such a clear discussion of a historiographical problem?  One with real relevance to the present?

Image: Tintagel. People in the 12th century thought this was an Arthurian site.

Some of the best stuff on the internet

Ta-Nehisi Coates on  Tony Judt's Postwar:

 But it's fairly clear that hate that made the Shoah was neither an invention nor the magic of false-consciousness, but a reflection of the people themselves:

In the same poll of November 1946, one German in three agreed with the proposition that ‘Jews should not have the same rights as those belonging to the Aryan race’. This is not especially surprising, given that respondents had just emerged from twelve years under an authoritarian government committed to this view. What does surprise is a poll taken six years later in which a slightly higher. percentage of West Germans—37 percent—affirmed that it was better for Germany to have no Jews on its territory. But then in that same year (1952) 25 percent of West Germans admitted to having a ‘good opinion’ of Hitler.

Attendant to all of this was something that any student of white supremacy in America will recognize--a strong propensity toward national amnesia:

 In Italy the daily newspaper of the new Christian Democrat Party put out a similar call to oblivion on the day of Hitler’s death: ‘We have the strength to forget!’, it proclaimed. ‘Forget as soon as possible!’ In the East the Communists’ strongest suit was their promise to make a revolutionary new beginning in countries where everyone had something to forget...

It's worth taking a moment to think about this "strength to forget" notion. National forgetting is always a selective endeavor. Italy had no more intention of dismissing its Roman heritage as "the past," then Americans have of dismissing George Washington as "the past." "The past" is whatever contributes to a societies moral debts. "Heritage" is everything else. 

Judt is making a very disturbing argument--that postwar Europe was built on  a willingness to only push deNazification but so far. There is here something not wholly dissimilar to our own reunion accomplished on an agreement to "forget" what the War was over. So far does the myth advance that Judt finds president Eisenhower lauding the Wermacht--"The German soldier fought bravely and honorably for his homeland."

We are confronted with a series of awful questions: What are the actual limits of human justice? How much of human justice, ultimately, rests on the accumulation of guns? What is one to do when the people, themselves--not sinister hidden forces are the engines of persecution? Of useful killing? Of genocide? ...

Man.  Such hate. What can we do against such reckless hate. Don't study history to boost your self-esteem. Study history to lose your religion. Or maybe in the end, to gain it. I am not religious at all. But seeing the limits of all of us, you start to understand why people might appeal to some higher, more certain, more fierce, invention.

Goodbye to Ravenhill

Ravenhill (sometimes known as the Last Homely House South of the Mattawa (River)) was the name we gave to our 95 acre rural property in Bonfield Ontario. We sold the place about two weeks ago. It is the home that I have lived in longest.

I am sad to be leaving. It really is very nice to have a huge piece of property, where you can take your dogs for a walk, raise sheep, allow medieval reenactors to camp (every year for 20 years), ride your horses. Never again.

On the other hand, as we got older, the disadvantages became more and more obvious. It is a lot of work to manage a property and a house in the Canadian countryside. Eventually it got away from us. My health is not what it once was, and my very healthy and energetic wife has limits, too, though our friends  may doubt that.

It also became increasingly expensive and inconvenient to be a half-hour to 45 minutes from about anywhere. (Even when you get to North Bay, you are basically in the no shopping zone.)

On top of that, the Bonfield environment has been turning sour. Most people in the village are perfectly nice people, but even working with our neighbors we were not able to stop someone bringing in a horrifically noisy dragstrip, or our Township Council from launching an experiment in unionbusting.

And then… There is winter. I’ve been proud of being able to deal with winter and even enjoy it, but the idea that I might never need to own snow tires again pleases me mightily.

Some of my friends reading this will think that they have lost something too. Well, I rather hope you feel that way. We put a lot of effort into making the last homely house the welcoming place it was for you. And we were very glad to have you there.

Tam Lin

A friend sent me a link to this marvelous rendition by Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer of the British folk song Tam Lin.



Hearing this version of the song was a shock. It forcefully read reminded me of this version of Tam Lin by the folk-rock group Fairport Convention,, which I first heard in the summer of 1972:



That summer I was in Norwich, England taking part in an archaeological dig. It was a wonderful way to celebrate my graduation from University. The people running the dig provided us with cheap housing and a little bit of spending money, and we scraped or dug dirt. It was a social and informal learning experience and I soaked it up.

The house we were staying in was a student house during term time, and the usual residents had left lots of their property, including a record player and the Fairport Convention album Liege and Lief. I played the album a lot, particularly the song Tam Lin, about "an earthly knight" rescued from the Queen of the Fairies by his lover. I was an SCA member, a historian hoping to be a professional medievalist some day, and someone who really appreciated the rock elements of this particular arrangement.

And Tam Lin was just the beginning. Somebody told me about a weekly get-together of folk music enthusiasts at a pub near our dig, and I went there more than once, although I never had the nerve to to sing an American folk song. And before I left England a friend of mine gave me one of the early Steeleye Span albums.

The result was that I had found in British and later Irish folk the soundtrack of my life for the next decade, The decade when I was a graduate student and when I was most intensely involved in the SCA.

It was really something to reflect on that..

Deed of the red knight

As many readers know, I have been participating in the Society for Creative Anachronism for decades. One of the things I have done in that time is designed and run medieval – style tournaments. So my scholarly work on formal combats ( deeds of arms) has been paralleled with attempts to re-create, for fun and for interest, various kinds of formal combats. The distinction between running an SCA event that has some pretensions to a medieval atmosphere and running, either in SCA context or elsewhere, something closely modeled on an actual medieval event may be a little bit fuzzy, but let it suffice to say that I've tried to get closer to medieval exemplars as time goes along.   Christian Cameron, novelist and reenactor, has similar ambitions and this past weekend I was privileged to take part and indeed help design an effort at re-creating late 14th century formal combat. Christian wanted to experience a close reenactment to help him understand and write about such an event in one of his upcoming novels, part of a Red Knight series. He also wanted to invite some of the most interesting reenactors he knew to a special party. Did he ever succeed! Christian happens know some very creative people, and also has access to a lakefront property of great beauty in Prince Edward County, Ontario. So this past weekend, some serious but fun-loving folk showed up with pavilions, armor, and civilian costume of the highest level. He asked Cole Cioran and I, who ran a Roland-inspired deed at the Pennsic war about 10 years ago, to come up with a usable and satisfying set of rules and competitions that would appeal to Western martial arts aficionados, historic reenactors, and serious SCA people. We were also given the task and the authority to manage the fighting aspect. Cole was the chief Herald and the marshal of the lists, while I played "the Duke," a presiding noble who with his Duchess Judith, (in real life the owner of the site and a most gracious patron) acted as the final authority as to what took place in the lists. Duchess Judith and I also, with the jury of ladies, gave awards and honorable mentions to the fighters who were the most impressive. These were satisfying roles to play, especially considering the quality of the competitors and their general good attitude and desire to re-create a chivalric deed of arms. Duchess Judith, whom as far as I know has no experience with such events, turned out to be an enthusiastic and sensible contributor to the action. Besides the combat in the lists, there was also archery and a rather marvelous feast prepared on the spot in a rather wonderful outdoor kitchen which is a permanent part of the site. As we ate we were entertained by the Schola Magdalena, who performed 14th century choral music at the highest level of skill and beauty. But the greatest pleasure was simply being there overlooking Lake Ontario and chatting and drinking with like-minded happy people. And there were no disasters, thank heaven. Even though I was there as an experienced hand, in one sense I was a complete novice. I had never before seen that much combat with steel weapons, nor such a large group of people using actual armor for actual protection. SCA style combat has its virtues, but here it was steel (mostly) swords against (almost entirely) mail and plate. Impressive. I may have more to say about it in a bit


Image: Cole at work.

What was the point of the Combat of the Thirty (1351)?

At this year's Pennsic war, as for several preceding this one, there was a reenactment of the combat of the  thirty, which took place in Brittany in the year 1351 during the first phase of the Hundred Years War.As every time before, the sides were not even. Despite a big discrepancy in numbers, the sides are not evened up. The combatants chose to stay with the signs they had chosen or had been recruited into earlier.I think this is rather odd, given that the whole point of the original combat of the 30 was to see who was better if sides were kept even and no outsider was allowed to intervene. To remind the SCA community of what contemporaries thought was essential to the event, I am reproducing here from my book The Combat of the Thirty, three contemporary and near contemporary descriptions of how the combat was arranged.  

Jean le Bel's account

How thirty French fought against thirty English and Germans by certain agreements in Brittany, and the English and the Germans were defeated.

In this same season, there took place in Brittany a most marvelous deed of arms which should never be forgotten

Messire Robert de Beaumont, a valiant knight of a great family in Brittany, was castellan of Castle Josselin, where he had a great many men-at-arms and squires of his lineage.  And it so happened one day that he came  near the  castle of Ploermel, whose castellan was a German mercenary called Brandebourch, who had with him a great many German, Breton, and  English mercenaries, and he was of the party of the Countess.

When Messire Robert saw that none of the garrison was coming out, he went to the gate and called out this Brandebourch, under a guarantee of safety, and asked him whether he had any companion, or perhaps two or three, who wished to joust with steel lances against three, for the love of their ladies.  Brandebourch replied and said to him, that their lady loves would hardly wish that they should get themselves killed in a single joust, for this kind of venture was over too soon, and in it one got more of a reputation for presumption and folly than for honor and worth.

"But I will tell you what we will do.  If you like, you will choose twenty or thirty of your companions  from your garrison, and I will choose as many from ours  and we will go to a field where no one will be able to disturb or prevent us, and command on pain of the noose to all of our companions on either side, and all those who watch us, that none should give the combatants reinforcement or help."

"By my faith," replied Messire Robert, "I agree to thirty against thirty, and I swear it thus by my faith."

"I, too," said Brandebourch, "swear it, for he who carries himself well there will gain more honor than in a joust."   And so this affair was agreed and an appointment was made for the following Wednesday, four days hence.

During that time, each party chose their own thirty, just as they wished, and each of the sixty procured such armor for himself as he was able.

When the day had come, the thirty companions of Brandebourch heard Mass and then armed themselves and left for the field where the battle was to take place.  And they dismounted and ordered all those who were there that none of them should be so bold as to intervene for any reason whatever.

Those thirty companions whom we will call "the English" waited a long time for those whom we will call "the French."

When the thirty French had come, they dismounted and commanded just as the English had done, that no one should give them help or aid.   Some say that four or five of the French remained on horseback at the entrance to the field, and that twenty-five dismounted, just as the English had; but I don't know for certain, for I wasn't there.   However it was, they spoke a little, all sixty of them, and then stepped back, each party to its own side, and made all their people retreat well back from field.

La Bataille de trente Anglois et de trente Bretons

[IV]

“ Brambro,” said Beaumanoir, “Know for certain

That all your boasts will avail you nothing.

Those who say the most in the end deceive themselves.

Now please, Brambro, let us do the smart thing.

Let us get together to fight, by appointment,

With sixty companions, or eighty or a hundred,

And then indeed we will see for truth and for a certainty,

Who will have wrong or right, without further ado.”

“My lord, “ this Brambro said, “I swear it to you!”

V

Will “Brambro,” says Beaumanoir, “for the sake of God the just,

You are a valiant man and a very shrewd warrior,

Come on that day without asking for delay

In a year one says many a word which one wishes to recall,

And one often makes great boasts over dinner.

Do not do to me what you did to Pierre Angier

That valiant, noble man, that gentle bachelor.

He chose a day for battle with you

At the town of Ambissat. And I have heard said

That he went to that place to acquit his oath

With twenty-six spurred knights

All accoutered in gold and steel.

And Brambro, you defaulted.  You did not dare to go.

This deed we are discussing, is a very great one.

You should not mock it! 

People will speak of it for a very long time!”

“Beaumanoir,” says Brambro, “For God’s sake let be!

For I will certainly be the first on the field.

With me will be thirty men, no more, no less,

Who will all be covered in good iron and steel.

I will not bring any villain, God give me aid!

The least of them will be a squire,

Bearing a coat of arms on his chest.”

But Brambro lies to conceal his plan,

So you do not imagine that he will bring

A bastard villain vagabond

Strong enough to carry, easily, a setier of beans

Over his neck, whose stomach was bigger

Than that of a courser.  Brambro, by his great fierceness,

Armed him this day.  Through him he thought

To avenge Dagworth, when he should have struck down

Such a villain deceiver.

I now will tell you of the noble Beaumanoir.

To Brambro he says, “I wish concerning this to go

To castle Josselin, to muster my men.”

“You go,” Brambro told him.  “I also wish to issue my orders

Through all the duchy.   I will assemble all

The noble English I can find.”

Thus was the battle vowed, that without cheating or fraud

They should fight it out in good faith

And on either side, all would be on horseback.

Pray then to the King of Glory, who knows and sees all,

That he will help those who have the right,

For this is the point at issue.

Androw of Wyntoun’s Account

The lord of Beaumanoir in battle

Manfully approached an English knight

That spoke of Frenchmen quite lightly

And would often say scornfully

“What, are not the English the doughtiest men

Though God may sleep in his den

Yet I think and I think it true

One Englishman is worth two French.”

Thus he often spoke until the day

This lord of Beaumanoir said to him

“You speak, sir, too freely

Men may perchance find near at hand

Men of such quality

As you may find in your country.”

The knight said, “Sir, by my faith

That I would like to  put to the test

Where we could fight with even sides.

And I would like to be one of them.”

Beaumanoir then was angered

And said to him, “You may find perchance

Your fill of fighting if you dare.”

“Yes, God willing,” said he, “I will be there.”

“Good sir,” says Beaumanoir, “perhaps

If you wish to put it to the test

I shall make the covenant.

You shall go home to England

And choose of the best men in your country

Until there be thirty-one

And I shall choose as many for myself

Of kin and friends here with me

And let us set here a certain place

To meet, and if God gives me grace

I will have victory with my retinue

If you shall be slain in the combat

Your ransom I will forgive you

I shall not ask for anything

And if you are taken to prison

Then shall you double your ransom to me.

So shall men see if French can deal

As fiercely with Englishmen.

Who has the heavy horses?

In the last generation, many medieval military historians have applied and adapted the idea of a military revolution to the era of the Hundred Years War. One element of that supposed revolution was the deemphasis of cavalry and new emphasis on infantry, especially infantry using projectile weapons. A few years back at the Kalamazoo conference there was a rather humorous session in which a well-known scholar felt it necessary to argue the cavalry was not completely useless, and he received a rather jocular reception.

Exactly how cavalry was used in the high Middle Ages, how useful it was, and how its role changed in the later Middle Ages and the early modern period is a difficult question, or series of questions. However, I feel on very solid ground to assert that horsemanship and fighting on horse back were considered by contemporaries to be an essential element of noble identity. A man at arms, a warrior of high standing, was a cavalryman, and – here's a practical note – was paid more than men on foot, gens de pie, were.

Here's another interesting story relevant to this matter. It comes of course from my favorite text, the Chronicle of the Good Duke, written in 1429 but in this case claiming to report an incident of 1388. Once again the Duke of Brittany and the Constable of France were fighting. The Duke had brought up a substantial army and the Constable was outnumbered. Here's what happened next, according (probably) to a survivor of this campaign, Jean de Chastelmorand.

The Duke of Brittany seeing the battle order of the Lord of Clisson told his men, "My lords and companions, see Clisson there, who has arranged his companies and desires nothing but battle. I would not refuse it at all. willingly but I see that he has put together a great wing of his men who are mounted on great coursers of superior quality. Our horses are small; those over there will come charge us and we will not be able to withstand them; and things will be the worse for us."

Some of my readers will know the catchphrase "who gets the horse?" that came out of recent discussions of Charny's questions. Here we have "who has the heavy horses?"

Update: somewhat later, the Lord of Clisson says something of this sort:

Beaumanoir will lead the remaining men of my household and I don't want you to have more than about 150 men at arms for you are plenty for 600 horses of Bretons. And I swear to God that the horse of the Bretons are worth nothing and it seems to me that you will not fail to find your adventure and you will be able to take it looking good and complete it.

 Further update:

When it came to the middle of the day, the Lord of Clisson said to his men, “My good Lords, you are well mounted, the horses of those over there are small; charge into these Bretons and push them into the battalion of the Duke.” And they did it just so and in this melee both a good 100 Bretons of the Duke’s party were killed and a good 100 horses gained; 

Jousting in Frankish Greece, from the Chronicle of Morea

The Chronicle of Morea is an important source for the  history of the Frankish lordships that  grew up in Greece as a result of the Fourth Crusade,  and for  that reason Anne van Arsdall is translating the  French version  for the  Ashgate Crusader texts in translation series.  It includes this interesting story of  a  mid-fourteenth century joust, which was written up in the 1340s, just before Charny compiled his questions on the joust. Thanks to Anne for allowing me to use this.

1016. The prince sent his messengers throughout all Romania and all the islands, ordering them to announce that seven crusaders who had come from the Holy Land were challenging all the knights who wanted to come and joust with them  to win and lose horses. The jousts were to last twenty days and were to be held at the city of Corinth. Then he had armor made as required for seven knights, sewn with a crest of golden shells on precious green silk.  Then he had suitably noble lists constructed . When the jousts began, the local knights jousted, each in turn, with the visitors. 

1017. Then Prince Philip of Savoy came and jousted nobly, as did all the knights of his house. When the Duke of Athens, the most powerful man after the prince and the best rider, saw how noble the jousts were, he said he would lack nothing if he could joust with William Bouchart, because Lord Bouchart was considered one of the best jousters in the West. The duke said to prove himself, he would joust in such a way that he would charge straight on at Lord Bouchart and his horse, even if he should die. 

1018. Then the duke covered himself with good layers of cloth all over his body and underneath that he armed himself with the best furs he could have. But he could not do so secretly enough that the marshal did not know about it. And when the marshal knew about it, he told Lord William Bouchart that he ought to arm and outfit himself exactly like the duke, because the duke was going to charge him head-on.  Lord William replied that God would not be pleased if such dishonor were attributed to him, and he would not arm himself to die other than as simply as he had in jousting with the other knights. 

1019. It happened like this: the duke entered from the visitors' side, nobly accompanied,and Lord William from the locals'.  When they were in the row inside the lists, during the first joust they had, Lord William intended to spare the duke first because of the duke’s nobility and rank, and second because he was not used to jousting like the duke of Athens was doing.  He left him in the list. 

1020. But the duke, who wanted in the worst way to charge him, came galloping so audaciously that Lord William could not avoid him. The duke managed to point his horse's head  straight toward Lord William with the result that the knights fought  body and chest against one another, and their horses too—head to head, so hard that the head of Lord William's horse was  smashed into its body between the two shoulders and collapsed on the ground together with the knight.  

1021. But the lord, who knew the profession, did not want to leave the saddle bow until the judge ruled whether he was without a horse or not. The duke’s horse crashed into the wooden barriers.  As he was about to pummet down with the duke, the knights and other men who were there around the lists in a great crowd, ran there and looked under the duke’s horse, and they forcefully dragged him out by his shoulders and arms.. 

….. 

1022.  . .  . to enter the lists like someone who thinks he will die ignobly. When the marshal saw that the knight did not seem to be coming toward him, he accomplished his four laps and then went back to his tents, very angry because the count would not come joust with him and lost his resolve and the great will he had to fight with him. 

1023. Lord William Bouchart had known for certain that the horse Lord John rode to the jousts was one of the best in the country and that the Lord had acted as though the horse was injured because of how much he feared the marshal. And when it got toward evening, Lord William managed to get the horse, mounted on it completely unarmed and galloped about, going in and out of the lists yelling at the top of his voice: Look here at the horse who is not able to go to the jousts! 

1024. This act caused serious accusations to be made against Lord John of Nivelet. And after this joust, everone who came as a local jousted with all who came as visitors, until the jousts were finished, because there were more than 1000 to joust with the locals. 

Based on:  Jean Longnon, Jean, ed. 1911. Livre de la conquest de la Princée de l'Amorée, Chronique de 

Morée (1204-1305). Paris: Librarie Renouard.