Arthur's Grave

In 1184, Glastonbury Abbey was devastated by a fire in the monastic buildings. A new Lady Chapel was consecrated in 1186, after which progress slowed down. Pilgrimages—and the donations they bring—had fallen off.

In 1191, however, an excavation on the grounds was undertaken, inspired by (we are told) information passed onto King Henry II from "an aged British bard." The excavation turned up a large flat stone. On the underside of the stone a leaden cross was attached. When the cross was detached, on the side facing the stone they found letters proclaiming Hic jacet sepultus inclitus Rex Arturius in insula Avallonia ["Here lies buried famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon"]. Several feet below this was found a large coffin made from oak containing a very large set of bones, along with a smaller set. These were understood to be Arthur and Guinevere.

Well, pilgrimages soared, of course. The relics and lead cross were put in the church; a few eyewitnesses mention them, but they are long vanished now. So...what was it about? Does anyone today really believe that King Arthur's bones were found under Glastonbury? If the king were involved, what was his return on the investment?

Arthur was considered a national hero, and legend said he would return in time of the nation's need. Henry wasn't British: he was the current monarch resulting from the Norman Conquest of Britain. He didn't even speak English. Some have suggested that his involvement was to discourage Welsh nationalism by showing that their legendary king was truly dead and would never return. I believed this for awhile, until I noticed the dates involved.

That idea doesn't quite fit history. The story that Henry had the clue to finding the body comes from Gerald of Wales, a historian writing a few years after the discovery. Interestingly, Henry had died two years prior to the excavation, so Gerald's suggestion that Henry got his information from that anonymous British bard seems spurious to me. It is more likely that the Abbey itself arranged this to increase attention and income.

Henry was a fascinating character in his own right, however, and worth looking at next time.

The Carthusians

Saint Hugo persuades Bruno of Cologne
to found the Carthusian Order
(cathedral window in Grenoble, France)

The Carthusians have been mentioned here before, when Geert Groote gave away all his possessions to that order. A few days ago was the anniversary of the death (6 October 1101) of the founder of the Carthusians, Bruno of Cologne.

Born in Cologne about 1030, he may have studied at the college of St. Cunibert (where Pepin the Short interred the remains of the Two Ewalds). We do know that he went to Reims for his later education—he was probably there when Anne of Kiev got married in the Cathedral—studying Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers. By 1055 he had returned to Cologne and been made a canon at St. Cunibert, but was called back to Reims by its bishop and put in charge of the local schools, a position he maintained until 1075. (One of his students later became Pope Urban II.)

Bruno eventually gave up the administrative duties, refusing the rille of a bishop for something more contemplative. He first spent time with Robert of Molesme, who later founded the Cistercian Order.

When he founded his own order, in 1084, Bruno decided it would be for both men and women. No abbots, because there would be no abbeys; a hermitage would be overseen by a prior. Priests and nuns (or lay brothers and sisters) would be hermits, shutting themselves off from the outside world in small cells. The day would be spent in prayer and labor...and silence.

The first hermitage was built in the Chartreuse Mountains in the French Alps. It is from these mountains that the word "Carthusian" comes. (Also, the monks started producing a cordial in the 1740s called "Chartreuse." From the color of the cordial comes the color chartreuse.)

As penance for the death of St. Thomas Becket, King Henry II built a Carthusian charter house in 1182 in Somerset.

The Assize of Clarendon

King Henry II of England had problems. The period known as The Anarchy was over, but the mercenaries employed during it were causing trouble in England now that no one was paying them. "Crusades Fever" was rampant, and aristocrats were leaving their lands for years at a time to liberate the Holy Land; when they returned, they might find someone else farming their estates without permission—and no office of land management that kept records as to who was the rightful owner. And, of course, the Church was doing as it pleased regarding the law, exercising sole authority over its clergy rather than allow them to be bound by civil laws.

Henry needed to put some order onto this chaos. We have already seen (later in his reign) the Assize of Arms. The major instrument of establishing new policies was the Assize of Clarendon in 1166. It was an attempt to establish the rule of law based on evidence and analysis rather than Trial by Ordeal, and to rest final authority with the Crown and its representatives.

It made certain that sheriffs kept records of any criminals in their territories, and that sheriffs would notify other sheriffs of criminals that fled in their direction, to be captured and held. A cleric who was found guilty in an ecclesiastical court was stripped of his office and turned over to the civil court. Compurgation was no longer sufficient as a defense in a felony. Sheriffs had to respond to requests by the "itinerant justices" (the "justices in eyre") sent around by the king.

One important innovation that modern law historians make note of is the first part of Clarendon:

1. In the first place the aforesaid king Henry, by thee counsel of all his barons, for the preservation of peace and the observing of justice, has decreed that an inquest shall be made throughout the separate counties, and throughout the separate hundreds, through twelve of the more lawful men of the hundred... [link]

This is seen as the first step to "Trial by Jury" with  jury of twelve of your peers chosen to analyze a case and help pass judgment.

Eyres

An "eyre" (Middle English, from Old French eire from Latin iter, "journey") was "a circuit court held in medieval England by a judge (a justice in eyre) who rode from county to county for that purpose." (New Oxford American Dictionary). The justices in eyre, sent from Westminster to all counties (all but two that is; see below), would hear and rule on crown pleas (criminal offenses), and civil pleas (lawsuits).

Eyres were declared in the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, put in place by the rule-loving Henry II (1133 - 1189)—who wanted to get away from solutions that involved Trial by Combat or Trial by Ordeal—but we have no records of the eyres from that decade. By the end of the century, justices in eyre were required to keep careful records so that sheriffs knew from whom and how much in fines they were supposed to collect. The resulting "eyre rolls" are rolls of parchments stitched together, filled with Latin abbreviations and legal terminology.

Durham and Chester were exempt from the justices in eyre. The king had no jurisdiction there, because they were palatinates, ruled by a local palatine [Latin: "of the palace"], a figure who had jurisdiction that normally belongs to a king. Durham and Chester were under the control of their bishops, and eyres could only be conducted there if a bishop were dead and his successor not yet appointed.

Richard's Lionheart

Box that held Richard's heart. The inscription reads:
"Here is the heart of Richard, King of England." 

Once Richard the Lionheart died from a crossbow bolt that was removed by a clumsy surgeon, the debate over appropriate interment began. Like saints, "There's such divinity doth hedge a king" (to borrow a phrase from Shakespeare*) that the body is special, and many people for whom he was their lord would want his memorial to be in their territory. His body was sent to Fontevraud Abbey to be interred near the body of his father, King Henry II. (See the picture in the post linked to above.)

But that was just his body.

Supposedly, on his deathbed he told his mother that he wanted his heart to go to Rouen, where it was placed in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Rouen was the base for English forces in France at the time. His other internal organs were removed and buried in Chalus, where he died.

Over time, the location of the heart and entrails were lost, but an excavation at Notre Dame in 1838 uncovered a lead box inscribed with "Here is the heart of Richard, King of England."

Technically, the "heart" doesn't exist: 800 years has reduced it to dust, but that dust contains clues to 12th century embalming techniques. A 2006 "autopsy" was performed to find out what it could about the heart. It found several components:

• Human proteins associated with cardiac muscle
• Fragments of linen (the heart was probably wrapped in it)
• Some lead and tin (probably leached into the dust from the box)  and mercury (used during embalming)
• Pollens: pine, oak, poplar, plantain, bellflower (in the air when he died, so probably incidental)
• Myrtle, daisy, mint (not in bloom in spring, and probably used during embalming to give a nice aroma)
• Frankincense (used for embalming and symbolically because of the Three Wise Men's gifts)



The remains as they look today, in a crystal container.

• Calcium (probably from lime used to preserve the heart)

Of interest to historians is the elements found that can only be accounted for by attempts to embalm/preserve the heart. The Church frowned on embalming, because it was known to be a pagan practice.

The shoebox-sized reliquary, and the crystal box that contains the remains of the heart of Richard, now sit in the Museum of Natural History in Rouen.

*Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5, line 98

The King's Ward/Mistress

Little is known about Ida de Tosny, but she was likely the daughter of Ralph de Tosny (c.1130 - 1162) and Margaret Beaumont. Orphaned at a young age, she was lucky enough to be given to the protection of the King, Henry II.

She first enters the public record in Christmas 1181, when she is married (quite advantageously for her) to Robert Bigod, the 2nd Earl of Norfolk. Robert's father had joined Henry's sons when they rebelled against their father inn 1173-74, so the family lands had been confiscated. The estates—Acle, Halvergate, and South Walsham, all in Norfolk—were returned to Robert (who had remained loyal to Henry) upon his marriage. He did not, however, get his father's earldom until 1189.

Robert and Ida were loyal to the royal family, and provided several (four boys and two girls) loyal children. Their eldest, Hugh, became the third Earl of Norfolk and married a daughter of the powerful William Marshall.

Ida doesn't really become more interesting until long after her death, when a charter is discovered connected to William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury; it refers to Comitissa Ida, mater mea ["Countess Ida, my mother"]. William was known to be an illegitimate child of Henry II, but his maternity was not known prior to this stray comment. It had been assumed (but the rumors came long after his lifetime) that his mother was Rosamund Clifford, Henry's best-known mistress. Clearly, Henry treated Ida as something more than a ward.

And that's all the historical significance we can find for Ida de Tosny, except that she does become, with her husband, a character in the historical novels of Elizabeth Chadwick, most notably The Time of Singing. Immortality can come from very small occurrences, sometimes.

William Longespée

19th c. painting of
William [link]

The Battle of Damme (mentioned yesterday) was led by the 3rd Earl of Salisbury, a man named William Longespée. William, born about 1176, remained loyal to the royal family throughout his life, probably because they were very good to him.

In 1188, still a teenager, King Henry II gave him the Appleby estate in Lincolnshire. In 1196, the second Earl of Salisbury having just died, King Richard married William off to the Earl's nine-year-old daughter, Ela. This made William the 3rd Earl of Salisbury jure uxoris ["by right of marriage"]. Although it was merely a political match that rewarded William (and put Salisbury into safe hands), William and Ela had several children; the eldest, William II, was born c. 1212.

During John's reign, William was given responsibility for several other positions: warden of the Welsh Marches (this was before Wales was divided into English counties); sheriff of (at different times) Wiltshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire; and the very powerful (but now just ceremonial) Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, with authority over  collecting taxes and dealing with crimes at the five important ports on the southern coast.

Besides commanding the expeditions to Wales and Ireland, William led the fleet that did so much damage to the French and brought back so much wealth for the Battle of Damme. He went up against the French again when he was sent to support England's ally, Otto IV of Germany, against Philip. Unfortunately, his efforts in that area failed, and he was captured and ransomed.

Back in England, he sided with John against the rebellious barons that led to the Magna Carta. In the civil war that followed, William led the forces of John in the south. Later, he would be loyal to John's son, Henry III, receiving more honors from him.

The reason he was in such good standing with the royal family is because he was John's half-brother. William was the illegitimate son of Henry II and the Countess Ida de Tosny, who was Henry's ward at the time.

Fair Rosamund

Fair Rosamund's Well today.

Blenheim Palace is of fairly recent vintage—the early 1700s is "recent" in the context of a blog devoted to the Middle Ages—but the site contains some much older features. A spring on the property fills a well that existed at least as far back as 1166, when royal accounts list a building project designed to enclose the spring, known at the time as Everswell. The name can be accounted for by a local legend that says it never runs dry. Nowadays, it has a different name; from the 16th century on, it has been referred to as "Rosamund's Well."

The Rosamund of the name is Rosamund Clifford, who would have been unknown to history but for an event that pushed her into prominence. Daughter of Walter Clifford, she was born sometime before 1150. Her father's position in government was sufficient that the king had reason to call on him. Sometime in 1163 (according to best guesses), Henry II did just that, stopping at Clifford Castle on the River Wye on his way to deal with a Welsh problem. That is likely where and when he first met Rosamund...

...and when they fell in love.

Henry was married—Eleanor of Aquitaine had divorced the king of France in 1152 and married Henry in 1154—but kings never let marriage stop them. There is much gossip and legend surrounding "Fair Rosamund," but there are a few things we can say for certain. One is that she was a very patient lover: given Henry's campaigns in England and on the continent, between 1163 and her death in 1176, they would not have been able to be in each other's presence for more than 2-3 years total. Stories that she traveled with him can not be substantiated by contemporary evidence.

The likelihood that she bore children for Henry is slim. Later suggestions that his son Geoffrey was hers make no sense, given that she would have had to been pregnant with Geoffrey while she was a baby.*

It is very likely that Henry kept her in Woodstock, which at the time was essentially a hunting lodge about 10 miles north of Oxford. The legend that he built a maze around it to keep her safe is untrue. It is possible, I suppose, that she really did bathe at Rosamund's Well. Blenheim Palace is just west of Woodstock, built on the grounds that once were part of the Woodstock lodge and the enclosed deer park.

She went to live in seclusion among the nuns at a monastery in Godstow in 1176, once her status as the king's mistress became known. She died shortly thereafter, and the king contributed to a family-built  tomb for her at Godstow. In 1191, the bishop of Lincoln found that her tomb, situated in the choir of the church, had become a popular site for locals to leave flowers. Shocked at the veneration given to a mistress, he had her tomb moved outside the monastery. Like so many other sites, it was destroyed by another Henry known for mistresses: Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.

*The illegitimacy of Geoffrey is not an invention; Eleanor was not his mother. The chronicler Walter Map (1140 - c.1209) claims Geoffrey's mother was someone named Ykenai.

Christmas Eve(nts)

The week, as you can imagine, is very hectic around the world for many people, and I am no exception. In  lieu of a regular post, here is a collection of links for events that took place on 24 December:

563 - Hagia Sophia is re-dedicated after being destroyed by an earthquake.

1046 - Pope Clement II is elected.

1167 - John "Lackland" is born to King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine; he would later sign the Magna Carta.

1294 - Pope Boniface VIII is elected. He would become an enemy of Dante, who would place Boniface in the 8th circle of Hell.

Movie Trivia

Every once in awhile, I decide to throw in bits and pieces that come my way but don't fit into a regular post. I did one here for the date of October 6th, and I gave an Update to cover some odds and ends I came across long after writing about certain subjects.

Since Becket has been on my mind (and on these pages) the past week, I cannot help thinking about how many people are probably familiar with him through the movie Becket, based on the play by Jean Anouilh. Made in 1964, it stars Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O'Toole as Henry II. The portrayal of Becket and his relationship with the king is inaccurate; Anouilh based it on a book he bought for his library whose green cover he thought would look good on his shelves. The book was not a true history, but Anouilh found that out after finishing the play, and altering his characters to reflect the truth would involve rewriting the entire play.

Perhaps it was the success of Becket that prompted the filming of A Man For All Seasons, based on the play by Robert Bolt of the same name, in which we see the tumultuous consequences suffered by (Saint) Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) when he refused to acknowledge King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw, probably better remembered to modern audiences as Captain Quint in Jaws) as the head of the new Church of England.

Peter O'Toole would play Henry II again in 1967, against Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, in The Lion in Winter. Like Becket, the movie was good, though the history was bad.

I've also mentioned The Anarchy as the backdrop for part of Theobald of Bec's career. The Anarchy is the era in which the Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters take place.

I call Pope Celestine V "the pope who quit"; Dan Brown's Angels and Demons book and movie use him as an example of a murdered pope. (Dan Brown's books should not be used as history.)

Speaking of bad history and historical conspiracy theories, William of Gellone is a prominent figure in Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln. Dan Brown's work shows the influence of this book.

...and that's enough trivia for another several months.

Chaucer Performs

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote 

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote 

DailyMedieval doesn't usually talk about topics that everyone knows about (King Arthur, Geoffrey Chaucer, jousting and castles, etc.), because it tries to pull back the curtain on all the other interesting people and places and tidbits of knowledge that do not get any exposure in textbooks or modern popular culture. (Not that I don't have a strong feelings about Chaucer, as the book link in the upper-right corner of this website tells you.)

From the Ellesmere manuscript

Today, however, we mention Geoffrey Chaucer, because today is thought to be the day of the year when his pilgrims set out on their journey in The Canterbury Tales. Also, 17 April 1397 is considered to be the day that he first gave a public reading of his most famous work at the court of Richard II.

Spring was the time when folk "longed to go on pilgrimages" because they had been cooped up indoors all winter and the roads were finally becoming navigable.

Canterbury was a common goal for pilgrimages because it held the shrine of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162-1170, who was killed during the reign of Henry II by four knights who were acting either on behalf of  the King or were removing the king's rival on their own in order to curry favor. He was universally loved by the population of England, and was declared a martyr by Pope Alexander III in 1173.

While we're on the subject, let's make something clear about The Canterbury Tales: it is not a complete work. In the collection, the proposal for the pilgrims is that they would each tell two tales heading to Canterbury and two tales coming back, after which their Host would judge the best tale. Chaucer's intent was possibly to top Boccaccio's Decameron with its ten tales each day for ten days. We have barely over 30 tales (and some of them fragmentary), a far cry from the 120 we could expect if he completed the work.

Compurgators

The ultimate character witness.

Throughout several centuries and many countries, establishing your innocence or trustworthiness in a court of law could be done by the use of compurgators. The word comes from Latin com (with) + purgare (cleanse; hence the modern word "purge").

If you were accused of wrongdoing, you would gather compurgators to appear for you in court. Ideally, you would find 12 of the most respected members of the community who would be willing to stand there and say that they believe you when you say you are innocent. Mind you, if you were found standing over a dead body with a bloody knife in your hand, compurgators were not likely to save you. This worked well when you were accused of cheating on a debt or stealing a spoon and hard evidence did not exist against you...unless you had friends who were determined to protect you.

The opportunities for abuse of such a system were rampant.

Henry II, or instance, in 1164 made sure that compurgation would not be allowed in felonies; he did not like the fact that a cleric (priest) might literally get away with murder in an ecclesiastical court by merely being defrocked, while the royal courts would use capital punishment for capital crimes. The use of compurgation in any way as a defense in England was eliminated from the court system in 1833.

The Music of Las Huelgas

From a facsimile edition of the Codex

[DailyMedieval is on semi-hiatus for the holidays, and I am re-cycling some older posts. Today's is new, however, inspired by a music CD I received: Secret Voices by the female a capella group Anonymous 4.]

The Abbey of Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas was founded in 1187 by Alfonso VIII of Castile, at the request of his wife, Eleanor of England, the daughter if Henry II an Eleanor of Aquitaine. It was founded on land that was going unused at the time; huelgas meant land that is fallow, although nowadays it is used to refer to "labor strikes."

Its origin granted it many royal privileges: it was exempt from taxes, held many valuable items that belonged to royal families, and became a traditional site for many royal weddings, such as that between Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. The monastery became Cistercian in 1199 and the burial sit for the royal family. Two of the first royal burials were the founders, Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England.

Known for the privileges of its abbess, and for the hospital founded by Alfonso VIII, Las Huelgas gave to the modern world one more fascinating item left over from the Middle Ages: music.

In 1904, while doing research on the origins and development of Gregorian chant, two Benedictine monks found a manuscript in Las Huelgas containing 45 monophonic pieces and 141 polyphonic pieces. They are written on fairly durable parchment in red and black ink with Franconian notation (briefly discussed here and here). The Las Huelgas Codex includes many pieces familiar to scholars, but also pieces that are not recorded elsewhere.

Most of the pieces are from the late 13th century, when it is known that Las Huelgas had a 100-woman choir. We have to assume that, despite the Cistercian rules against the performance of polyphonic music, the choir of Las Huelgas performed these pieces at will, thanks to their royal patronage and privileges (the abbess was allowed for a long time to call synods, confirm abbesses of other monasteries, and even hear confession and grant absolution!).

Here is a recording of the Benedicta et venerabilis II and the Benedicamus dominu, with pictures from the Abbey's architecture and art. Enjoy!

Queen Lionheart

Let us look at a classic "political marriage."

Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II of England and  mother of Richard called Lionheart, wanted the best possible match for her son. He was originally betrothed to Princess Alys, the sister of King Philip II of France, but she saw other opportunities for him.

In 1190, while Richard was on the Third Crusade, Eleanor met with King Sancho VI of Navarre, who hosted a banquet for her in Pamplona. It is likely that Eleanor negotiated the marriage of her son to Berengaria, the daughter of Sancho and his Queen, Sancha of Castile. Berengaria had been given the fief of Monreal in 1185; that, and an alliance between Richard and Navarre, would give protection to the southern border of the Aquitaine, the province in southern France that Eleanor had given to Richard. Berengaria had other fine qualities: commentators of the time say she was both attractive and intelligent.

Eleanor decided there was no time to waste, and she (now in her 60s!) and Berengaria undertook the long journey to meet with Richard. They caught up with him in Messina on the Island of Sicily. This was possibly the first time Richard and Beregaria ever met, although some believe there was an earlier occasion when they saw each other.

Richard ended his betrothal to Alys that year (after all, there were rumors that his father was having an affair with her). Unfortunately, it was Lent during their time in Sicily, so a marriage ceremony was not appropriate. Richard embarked on the next leg of the Third Crusade, and Berengaria took ship with Richard's sister, Joan of England, the widowed Queen of Sicily.* The ladies' ship foundered off the coast of Cyprus, where Isaac Comnenus opportunistically took them prisoner. When Richard learned of this, he brought part of his army to Cyprus, defeated and captured Comnenus, and took control of Cyprus. Berengaria and Richard were married on 12 May 1191, then left Cyprus for Palestine.

Abbey crypt and tomb of Berengaria

Once arriving in the Holy Land, Berengaria left for Poitou. It is likely that she never saw her husband again. When Richard was going home in 1194, he was captured in Germany. Berengaria and Eleanor separately raised ransom money. Richard spent little time in England as king, and Berengaria never went there, preferring her own southern lands. She did not attend his funeral at Fontevrault.

After Richard's death, his brother John refused to pay Berengaria's pension, despite intervention by Eleanor and Pope Innocent III. John's son, Henry III, finally paid the debt of £4000. She used some of the money to found a Cistercian monastery, the Pietas Dei at L’Épau. When she died, on 23 December 1230, she was buried there, rather than at Fontevrault next to her husband.

*Richard's diversion to Sicily was to free his sister from imprisonment by the usurper, Tancredi.

Urban Blight

While other history sites were celebrating the anniversary of the coronation of King Henry II yesterday, I was thinking about the anniversary of the death of Pope Urban V (1310-1370).

Born William de Grimoard to an aristocratic family, he became a Benedictine monk and later was abbot at the Abbey of St. Victor, where he made a tribute to John Cassian. He was sent to several universities to exercise his clever mind, and became an expert in Canon Law, the laws of the Church. He taught Canon Law at Avignon, Montpelier, and Paris. Returning to Avignon from a trip to Naples, where he had been sent by Pope Innocent IV, he found the pope dead. In the conclave that followed, no clear winner could be found, and Abbot William found himself being put forward as a compromise candidate. At this point, election of a pope required that the candidate be a cardinal, and William wasn't even a bishop. A hasty ordination was arranged.

Not a fan of ostentation, he continued to wear his Benedictine habit. A fan of education, he restored a school of medicine in Montpelier. His personal physician was the most-renowned surgeon of the day. He tried to restore the papacy to Rome from Avignon. He tried to get England to pay several years' worth of payments due the papacy, and clashed with Wycliffe over it. He attempted a Crusade against the Turks, which never got off the ground.

He also took a strong stand against heretics.

In 1363, he proclaimed the papal bull In caena Domini (At the table of the Lord), a collection of pronunciations of popes that merited excommunication for transgressors, and for which only the pope could give absolution. This bull, amended to include later papal injunctions, was repeated annually on Holy Thursday or Easter Monday. It listed infringements against papal authority as well as heresies, sacrileges, and other crimes. It was used to justify many an inquisition.

Over the centuries, rulers of Europe—both Catholic and Protestant—considered In caena Domini to be an infringement on their rights as sovereigns and complained. The annual recital of it was finally ended in 1770 by Pope Clement XIV.

Jews in London

One street is all that remains of the Jewry

Jews had followed William the Conqueror to England* and established a significant presence in London in an area still called Old Jewry. Their business and money-lending practices were efficient, such that their homes were made of sturdy stone more often than their Gentile neighbors' houses. William II (1087-1100) seems to have been tolerant of the Jews; Henry II (fl.1154-1189) as well. Life in London was considered amenable enough to Jews that the well-known Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra visited London, where in 1158 he wrote his Iggeret ha-Shabbat (Epistle on the Sabbath), which can still be found in print today.
Of course, life was never "good" for the Jews in medieval Europe. In England, for instance, there were laws designed to harass the Jews, like that which required every Jew who died in England to be buried at a special cemetery set up at Cripplegate in London—which forced every Jewish family to pay a fee for the burial.

King Henry III of England was first mentioned here in my second-ever blog post. In 1232 he established the Domus Conversorum (House of Converts), meant for Jews who converted to Christianity, giving up their possessions in exchange for a home and a daily stipend for food and necessities.

Henry was devout, certainly, but not always charitable. In the words of one scholar:

If Henry III, despite being constantly broke, managed to find enough money to keep work at [Westminster] Abbey in progress, that was partly because he was at least a devout enough Catholic to be able to rob the Jews with a good conscience. [A History of London, Robert Gray]

Henry, always in need of money, was fond of borrowing from the Jews and simply not paying them back. Jews were seen as being a tool for the King's pleasure, and the Barons and others resented the Crown's control over them. For the Coronation of Richard I Lionheart in Westminster Abbey, a Jewish group tried to crowd in the Abbey to show support and bring gifts for the new king. Their presence touched off riots. Londoners rushed to the Jewry and set fire to houses, killing those who tried to escape.

Thirty were reported killed. The conviction rate afterward: three. Two of those had accidentally torched a Christian home, and one had robbed a Christian home in the confusion.

*No evidence exists of a Jewish presence in England prior to 1066.

The Assize of Arms

In the early Middle Ages, Britain was a collection of territories, each with its own leader(s), which formed a loose confederacy at times of national trouble. When William of Normandy conquered in 1066, he put the whole land under one rule, maintained by his lieutenants and supporters in positions of authority over chunks of real estate. This was the start of the feudal system.

While the king might keep troops near him, there was for a long time no standing army that could be applied immediately to a military conflict. In the 11th and 12th centuries, countries in Western Europe still relied on raising armies by calling for volunteers and paying men to fight. Often these men came from other lands. After Henry II had to put down a 1373-4 rebellion by bringing in Brabançon soldiers, and seeing the distrust of his English subjects for their presence—not to mention their dislike of the extra taxes required to pay for the king's mercenaries—he created the Assize of Arms in 1181.

The purpose of the Assize was to make certain there would be sufficient local military support for a campaign. It outlined the responsibilities of his subjects to have the proper arms and armor and to bring them when called upon. Some of its 12 provisions were:

1. Each knight must have a hauberk (armor covering at least neck and shoulders), helmet, shield and lance.
2. Each freeman (worth at least 16 marks) must have hauberk, helmet, shield and lance. Each freeman of 10 marks worth must have a light hauberk, iron cap and lance.
4. Every man must swear an oath that they will have these arms and carry them for King Henry.
5. If you die, your arms go to your son; if he is too young, his guardian must use them or find a suitable person until the son comes of age.
7. No Jew should have arms, but should sell them to someone who can use them in the king's service.
8. No one may sell, trade, or carry away these arms so that they leave England.
10. If any man does not have arms in accordance with this order, the king shall take not only his goods and land, but also his life and limbs.

The Assize enabled Henry II and his successors to save themselves the cost of maintaining a standing army. Moreover, an army could be called up and assembled within a matter of days with requiring extraordinary taxation. It was very useful for King Henry two years later, when he had to go to war against a rebellion by his son and heir, King Henry.

But that's a story for another day.

A Note on Ireland

Anti-Irish sentiment has a long heritage. In the Middle Ages, Ireland was a target of Western Europe disdain for at least two reasons.

16th century map of Ireland.

Gerald of Wales (c.1146-c.1223), a royal clerk under King Henry II, accompanied Henry's son John to travel to Ireland in 1185. Gerald praised the land, but condemned the people:

They use their fields mostly for pasture. Little is cultivated and even less is sown. The problem here is not the quality of the soil but rather the lack of industry on the part of those who should cultivate it. This laziness means that the different types of minerals with which hidden veins of the earth are full are neither mined nor exploited in any way. They do not devote themselves to the manufacture of flax or wool, nor to the practice of any mechanical or mercantile act. Dedicated only to leisure and laziness, this is a truly barbarous people. They depend on their livelihood for animals and they live like animals.

This could have been an accurate account of what he saw, but could just as easily have been intended to provide justification for Henry's conquest of Ireland in order to gain for himself and his sons more lands and resources. Pope Adrian IV (the first Englishman to sit the Throne of Peter) had written a papal bull in 1155 called Laudabiliter;* it gave Henry permission to assume control over Ireland and apply Gregorian reforms.

...and that was the second reason for anti-Irish sentiment: Ireland needed to be brought into line doctrinally with the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic missions to Ireland (notably that of the Scotsman, St. Patrick) had introduced Christianity centuries before this. Christianity had survived in Ireland while it suffered in Britain due to invasion from Northern European pagan groups. But the Christianity restored in Britain afterward was closely tied to Rome, while Christianity in Ireland had developed its own practices and rituals.

Old habits are hard to break; "No Irish Need Apply" was not uncommon even in the second half of the 20th century, and Irish stereotypes and persecutions today are no new thing.

*The names of papal bulls don't always signify their topic; in this case, it is named for the opening word, which says (in English) "Laudably and profitably doth your Majesty consider how..." N.B.: scholars have argued for the last few centuries over the authenticity and authority of Laudabiliter, but for the present purpose, we can accept that it was very real for the 12th century.

Magna Carta

The "Great Charter" was signed on June 10, 1215 by King John.

After the Norman Invasion of 1066, the kings of England started to rule more as the monarchs we think of today, abandoning the English custom of a council of wise men, the witenagemot, that had aided kings for centuries. Under strong and charismatic individuals such as Henry II (who ruled from 1154 until 1189), this system may have worked, but King John was not like Henry II. He was called "Bad" King John because he taxed people so heavily. He was called "Lackland" (in Old French, Johan Sanz Terre) because he lost the Duchy of Normandy to King Philip II of France. For these and other reasons, he lost the support of his barons.

The barons decided they needed to return the kingdom's governance to a system that allowed them more input. To that end, they conferred and agreed to draw up a great charter, which was drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. Although Langton may not have been as affected by John's whims as the barons, he had been the cause of a dispute between John and Pope Innocent III, which had resulted in John's brief excommunication. Langton definitely saw the need to curb John's ability to get himself and England into trouble.

When John decided to tax the barons themselves in order to mount a war to regain lost provinces on the continent, the barons had had enough. The barons and Langton produced a document called the "Articles of the Barons" in January of 1215, which John rejected. The barons then armed themselves and marched to London, occupying it in May. They confronted John at Windsor Castle, and he agreed to a meeting at a place called Runnymede.

Some items established by Magna Carta:

• The Church was free to rule itself, especially in the appointment of bishops.
• No new taxes, except with the consent of the Great Council, or Parliament
• Weights and Measures were to be made uniform throughout the realm
• Everyone had the right to due process

On June 15th (797 years ago today), the Barons reciprocated by renewing their Oath of Fealty to King John.

Of course, John had no intention of being bound by the restrictions of the Magna Carta, but that's another story.

Compurgators

The ultimate character witness

Throughout several centuries and many countries, establishing your innocence or trustworthiness in a court of law could be done by the use of compurgators. The word comes from Latin com (with) + purgare (cleanse; hence the modern word "purge").

If you were accused of wrongdoing, you would gather compurgators to appear for you in court. Ideally, you would find 12 of the most respected members of the community who would be willing to stand there and say that they believe you when you say you are innocent. Mind you, if you were found standing over a dead body with a bloody knife in your hand, compurgators were not likely to save you. This worked well when you were accused of cheating on a debt or stealing a spoon and hard evidence did not exist against you...unless you had friends who were determined to protect you.


The opportunities for abuse of such a system were rampant.

Henry II, or instance, in 1164 made sure that compurgation would not be allowed in felonies; he did not like the fact that a cleric (priest) might literally get away with murder in an ecclesiastical court by merely being defrocked, while the royal courts would use capital punishment for capital crimes. The use of compurgation in any way as a defense in England was eliminated from the court system in 1833.