Act in Hastings, Repent at Leisure

A brief update from the wintery wastes of pre-post-Brexit Britain, and tomorrow is a very big birthday for medievalists, historically illiterate anti-Europe wonks and fans of Paul Kingsnorth alike.

That’s right! October the 14th is the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.

William, you smug prick.

This cataclysmic event marked the end of five hundred years of Germanic dominance in England, and the beginning of 950 (and counting) years of a legal code, social hierarchy and system of land ownership enshrined by the French descendants of a Scandinavian mercenary. That for the first five centuries of which were run in close accord with the edicts of priests of a Levantine religion, living in central Italy, only one of whom was ever English. And that for the past four hundred years have been exported to places un-thought of by any Norman administrator – places whose existing populations did not want us, and whose languages and civilisations were many thousands of years older than ours. But certainly now we’ve had enough of ‘meddling’, and egged on by an American-born narcissist of mixed Turkish-Russian-French ancestry, and the graceless descendant of French Huguenot refugees, we’ve jolly well told those ghastly Europeans so.

One historical irony emerges from this mess.

I’ve been teaching about language and dialectal distribution in medieval Great Britain, and the maps that I have badly drawn for this purpose are covered in arrows: pushing west from Kent and East Anglia, zigzagging across the Scottish border, plunging inland from the Northumbrian coast, like armies have done since the Romans left. The medieval chroniclers liked to claim that the British (who were Trojan) were conquered by the Saxons (who worshipped horses, or something) because of their sinfulness. The Saxons then squandered Providence’s favour, and the Normans were able to conquer them.

Despite their monumental uninterest, my students knew that the linguistic remnants of the pre-Roman British are to be found in Wales and Cornwall, both of which areas voted Leave. Now the pound (sterling, steorling, OE) is tanking as those nefarious experts suggested, the Scots are calling for independence and Marmite, invented by a German and marketed by the Dutch, is at the centre of a hostage situation. I can imagine that Wales and Cornwall are watching what is threatening to become a götterdämmerung for the English, and as the destruction spreads they approach the Anglo-Saxon and say softly, ‘Cymbeline sends his regards.’

Yes We Khan

A brief update from the damps of February. This week I considered writing something about romance (not Romance), or Forty Seven Medieval Ways to Neck a Bottle of Wine, but today is a special anniversary for two very special people. That’s right: on this day in respectively 1294 and 1405, Kublai Khan and Timur the Lame both died. Two out of three favourite medieval warlords rate today as the best day to die!

It is a bit weak to talk of the ‘achievements’ of men who ruled over substantial parts of Asia, oversaw vast construction projects and whose empires could scarcely survive them. In part it is a question of scale and ambition. Both men seem to have modelled themselves on Genghis, with all the ruthlessness and brutality that entailed. In another part, they simply feel unreal as historical figures.

Bro, do you even pillage?

What I know of these men I know primarily from European sources. Specifically, from the Livre des Merveilles du Monde of Marco Polo and Kit Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great. In many ways, this is like exploring medieval history using only the Arts and Crafts movement and Game of Thrones – or, precisely how most people explore medieval history.

The mythic quality of the historical figures easily spills into depictions of them. Rustichello’s Kublai is a King of Kings, with vast wealth, vast lands and a vast court, a latter-day Cyrus whose historical truth is more than a little tainted by legends of Prester John. Marlowe’s far later creation is an orgulous tyrant, crushing rivals and burning cities in scene after scene. Handel’s Tamerlano is pretty dreadful, with its three hours of da capo arias. Netflix’s Marco Polo is almost worse. Somehow, every one of them has a ring of truth.

The moral: enjoy your warlords in moderation.

Rue the Day

I was faffing around on the BnF Gallica website this week (this is how all good stories start, naturally) and came across the Chronica Karoli Sexti by the ‘Religieux’ of Saint-Denis. For reasons which should be clear this passage, from volume 5, particularly stood out:

Dolorosa relacione audita, rex, duces quoque Guienne atque Biturie, gravi dolore perculsi et merore consternati debito, in lamenta se dederunt; gemitu et lacrimis, quas pre spiritus angustia cohibere nequeunt, dolorem protestantur. Non modo nobiles tunc presentes, sed et ceteri utriusque sexus longe lateque per regnum, excecrabile fatum attendentes, spculum suum infame et pudendum omnique posteritati perpetuo criminandum reputabant, et addebant: “O quam malignis diebus nati sumus, qui videre cogimur tantam confusionem et ruborem!” Ubique sane vidisses insignes dominas et domicellas pro olosericis auro textis vestes lugubres sumere, quarum nec siccis oculis querimonias attendisses, dum quedam venerabile fedus conjugii dissolutum, alie natos et consanguineos interfectos inconsolabiliter deflebant, cordialius tamen illos qui insignium proavorum preclaros titulos, in bellis solitos proclamari, sic obruendo in perpetuum extinctos reddiderunt.

[After hearing this sad news, the king and the Dukes of Guyenne and Berry were struck with grave sorrow, and fell into a deep melancholy. They showed their grief with groans and tears, which they were unable to control because of anguish. Not just the lords of the court, but all people of both sexes far and wide throughout the kingdom, thinking of this dreadful event, thought their century to forever besmirched and dishonoured to all posterity, and said, ‘Alas, in what an evil day were we born, we who are forced to behold such chaos and shame!’ Everywhere it was observed that noble women and girls changed their silk and cloth-of-gold for mourning garments, women whose laments could not be heard with dry eyes, as some wept bitterly for the loss of their husbands, others for their slaughtered sons and relatives, but above all for those who in their burial should consign the famous names of their noble ancestors, so often honoured in wars, to perpetual extinction.]

‘This story shall the good man teach his son.’