Showing posts with label Orderic Vitalis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orderic Vitalis. Show all posts

Sunday, February 25, 2024

David versus Máel Coluim

King David I (pictured here) was one of many sons of Malcolm III of Scotland, several of whom had their chance on the throne after it had been usurped by their uncle, Donald. David was about 40 years old when his turn came, and he took the throne with the support of his brother-in-law, King Henry I of England. There was a problem, however: his nephew, Máel Coluim.

Máel Coluim ("Malcolm") mac Alexander was the illegitimate son of David's older brother, Alexander I. According to historian Orderic Vitalis, Malcolm "affected to snatch the kingdom from [David], and fought against him two sufficiently fierce battles; but David, who was loftier in understanding and in power and wealth, conquered him and his followers."

Malcolm escaped into more obscure parts of Scotland, surviving and gaining allies over a six-year span, after which he attempted to attack David for the throne again. One reason for his motivation might have been that David spent time in England, seeming to prefer visiting Henry's court over being among his own people.

Malcolm, with the support of Óengus of Moray (mentioned here), marched against David's army. The Annals of Ulster report that 4000 of Óengus' army and Óengus himself died, while only 1000 of the men loyal to David died that day. David's force, led by a constable, marched into the now undefended Moray and captured it. Malcolm himself escaped, and spent the next four years battling David's forces.

David was aided with a large force, including ships, from Henry. Malcolm was captured in 1134 at Roxburgh Castle, and history has no more to say about him. Moray was given to David's nephew, only son of David's oldest brother Duncan, who had held the kingship for less than six months in 1094.

David was called by William of Newburgh a "King not barbarous of a barbarous nation." He attempted to make some reforms that he felt Scotland and its church needed. I'll explain some of those tomorrow.

Thursday, May 18, 2023

What Makes a Troubadour?

In the years 1100 - 1350, a type of musical performer arose called a troubadour. They did not call themselves troubadours; that term was first used in 1575 to refer to court poets of the 12th and 13th centuries. They almost always referred to themselves as chantaire, "singer." The term "troubadour" is assumed to come from Occitan trobador, from trobaire, "composer," which may be from Late Latin tropare, "to compose, to invent a poem."

The earliest known troubadour whose work has survived was Duke William IX of Aquitaine (grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine). He may not have been the first troubadour: it is possible that his political prominence helped him appear to be the start of a tradition, but he may instead have been just one example of an already thriving cultural event. The chronicler Orderic Vitalis records that William composed songs about his experience on the First Crusade. Order also gives us a first-hand account of William performing "many times ... with rhythmic verses and witty measures."

The troubadour phenomenon rose and fell. The 12th century began with few examples of activity, but the final decades saw a burst of output: almost half of the almost 2500 pieces (from a total of about 450 known names) that have survived come from the years 1180 - 1220. Beginning in western Aquitaine, it spread to eastern Aquitaine, then down to Toulouse and Provence. In the early 1200s it reached Italy and Spain.

Duke William was probably the highest-ranking member of society who could be designated a troubadour. Most described themselves as "poor knights," although there was Jaufre Rudel, prince of Blaye in southwestern France.

The troubadours had an "enemy" in the jongleur. The jongleur was not the juggler that the word has become, but was actually a minstrel. The difference is that the minstrel plays songs he has heard from others, although there may be an element of dancing and acrobatics. The troubadour is a poet-composer, a much higher calling requiring skill. Troubadours often wrote attacks on jongleurs. There were, however, many troubadours who also entertained in the manner of the jongleur.

The word troubadour is masculine; a female troubadour is a trobairitz. It would make sense to look at the phenomenon of the female composer in the troubadour tradition next.

Friday, September 16, 2022

Oblates

Becoming a monk was not always a choice. Sometimes it was the default choice for someone with no skills that he could turn into a career, or for someone who had no taste for farming. Sometimes, parents would decide that the church was the best option for their child.

The Venerable Bede was a puer oblatus, a "boy oblate," sent to be raised at a monastery at the age of seven. The word oblate, in fact, means someone who has been offered. Monasteries that adhered to the Rule of St. Benedict accepted oblates that young—it was their chief source of new members—until 656CE, when the Tenth Council of Toledo forbade boys before the age of ten. Orderic Vitalis was given to his monastery at ten or eleven, and could take vows as early as fourteen. Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury suggested that oblates could take vows when the authorities of the monastery decided he was mature enough to understand and handle the obligations involved.

Various monasteries had their own policies regarding oblates. The 11th century About William of Hirschau defined two kinds of oblate:

fratres barbati ("bearded brethren), also called conversi (converts), who took vows but did not have to be clean-shaven or live cloistered.
oblati (oblates), workmen who followed religious rules while working at the monastery.

Other terms were used over the centuries: commissioned, donates, confronter, with various distinctions that changed over time. Despite the many approaches to managing and designating those who wished to be involved in the monastic or priestly life, the chief distinction was between those who entered fully and took all vows, and those who were only partially committed.

Which leads me to a new idea about oblates: a third order, for lay members of religious orders. There is a long history of this, which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Haunted by Demons

Want to own a speaker that plugs into your laptop
and depicts the ordination of Guthlac? You can!
Today is the feast day of an English saint, Guthlac of Crowland (673 - 714). Like many saints of his time, he was born into a noble family and chose a religious life either out of piety or because he was a younger son who was not in line to inherit much (and he needed some means of support that did not involve starting his own farm). His sister, Pega, is also considered a saint.

Although he fought under Æthelred of Mercia, by the age of 24 he was a monk at Repton Monastery in Derbyshire. By the age of 26, he had decided to become a hermit and went to live on an island called Croyland, which is now no longer an island and is called Crowland. The Vita Sancti Guthlaci ["Life of Saint Guthlac"] written by Felix in the 8th century tells us:
Now there was in the said island a mound built of clods of earth which greedy comers to the waste had dug open, in the hope of finding treasure there; in the side of this there seemed to be a sort of cistern, and in this Guthlac the man of blessed memory began to dwell, after building a hut over it. From the time when he first inhabited this hermitage this was his unalterable rule of life: namely to wear neither wool nor linen garments nor any other sort of soft material, but he spent the whole of his solitary life wearing garments made of skins. So great indeed was the abstinence of his daily life that from the time when he began to inhabit the desert he ate no food of any kind except that after sunset he took a scrap of barley bread and a small cup of muddy water.
 Life was not that simple, however, because his time there was spent being assailed by demons:
They were ferocious in appearance, terrible in shape with great heads, long necks, thin faces, yellow complexions, filthy beards, shaggy ears, wild foreheads, fierce eyes, foul mouths, horses' teeth, throats vomiting flames, twisted jaws, thick lips, strident voices, singed hair, fat cheeks, pigeons breasts, scabby thighs, knotty knees, crooked legs, swollen ankles, splay feet, spreading mouths, raucous cries. For they grew so terrible to hear with their mighty shriekings that they filled almost the whole intervening space between earth and heaven with their discordant bellowings.
Interestingly, Guthlac (Felix tells us) could actually understand the demonic speech, described as strimulentes loquelas ["sibilant speech"].* The reason he was able to understand it? Because of his time spent among the British-speaking natives of the island of Britain who had been displaced by the incoming Anglo-Saxons. (One wonders if the wind whistling through his rough-constructed living space made noises that imagination told him were words of temptation.)

Guthlac was a very popular figure in British history. The oldest surviving collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the Exeter Book, contains two poems, called Guthlac A and Guthlac B; B is based on the Vita, but A comes from some other source. A collection of illustrations of events in Guthlac's life was created after the Norman Conquest and put into the Orderic Vitalis. Today, a Guthlac Fellowship unites the several churches and parishes dedicated to Guthlac.

*Reminds me of Parseltongue from the works of J.K.Rowling.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Walking Dead

Orderic Vitalis (1075-c.1142) has been mentioned here and here for his history writing. The 13 books of his Historia eccliastica ["Ecclesiastical history"] told many tales of his time that had nothing to do with the Church. One of his anecdotes is truly outré.

While discussing some of the travails of William Rufus, he interjects a tale of a priest of Lisieux that took place on 1 January 1091. The priest, heading home at night from visiting a sick man, heard a loud noise coming along the moonlit road, as of an army. He decided to flee toward some trees in a field to hide himself, but as he ran toward them*
he was stopped by a man of enormous stature, armed with a massive club, who, raising his weapon above his head, shouted to him, "Stand! Take not a step further!" The priest, frozen with terror, stood motionless, leaning on his staff.
The giant stands by his side and awaits the arrival of the crowd making the noise.
a great crowd of people came by on foot, carrying on their heads and shoulders, sheep, clothes, furniture, and moveables of all descriptions, such as robbers are in the habit of pillaging. All were making great lamentations and urging one another to hasten their steps. Among them the priest recognized a number of his neighbours who had lately died, and heard them bewailing the excruciating sufferings with which they were tormented for their evil deeds. They were followed by a troop of corpse-bearers, who were joined by the giant already mentioned.
But there was more after this:
Then followed a crowd of women who seemed to the priest to be innumerable. They were mounted on horseback, riding in female fashion, with women's saddles which were stuck with red-hot nails. The wind often lifted them a cubit from their saddles, and then let them drop again on the sharp points. Their haunches thus punctured with the burning nails, and suffering horrible torments from the wounds and the scorching heat, the women pitiably ejaculated, woe! woe! and made open confession of the sins for which they were punished, undergoing in this manner fire and stench and unutterable tortures for the obscene allurements and filthy delights to which they had abandoned themselves when living among men.
He then sees a knight on horseback, who stops to speak to him, revealing himself as the priest's brother, and says:
"You deserve to die, and to be dragged with us to partake of the torments we suffer, because you have rashly laid hands on things which belong to our reprobate crew; no other living man ever dared to make such an attempt. But the mass you sang to-day has saved you from perishing. It is also permitted me thus to appear to you, and unfold to you my wretched condition. After I had conferred with you in Normandy, I took leave of you and crossed over to England, where, by the Creator's order, my life ended, and I have undergone intense suffering for the grievous sins with which I was burdened."
There is more (I have placed the whole story here). After this experience, the priest falls ill, but recovers to live another 15 years.

Orderic claims that he was told this tale directly by the priest who experienced it.


*Excerpts all from The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, trans. Thomas Forester, 1956.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

The White Ship

William of Malmesbury tells us of a disastrous event on 25 November 1120: the sinking of the White Ship off the coast of Normandy:
Here also perished with William, Richard, another of the King's sons, whom a woman without rank had borne him, before his accession, a brave youth, and dear to his father from his obedience; Richard d'Avranches, second Earl of Chester, and his brother Otheur; Geoffrey Ridel; Walter of Everci; Geoffrey, archdeacon of Hereford; the Countess of Chester; the king's niece Lucia-Mahaut of Blois; and many others ... No ship ever brought so much misery to England. [Gesta Regum Anglorum]
The William mentioned was the only surviving heir of King Henry I of England.

The White Ship was a magnificent vessel that had recently been refurbished with new materials. Its captain was the son of one of William of Normandy's pilots; in fact, the father had piloted William's flagship in the flotilla that conquered England. Had the captain had his way, all might have been well. Here's what happened:

King Henry and his sons were in Normandy, and returning to England. The ship was offered to him for the voyage, but as he had already made arrangements and was ready to depart, he gave the honor of the White Ship to his sons. Henry left for England. The sons, on their own and in command of a fancy ship, were generous in allowing the crew and passengers to start drinking while dockside. Later, with night approaching and alcohol flowing, they decided (foolishly) to set off and beat the king to England; they were sure the ship could do it, despite being weighed down by about 300 bodies. So they set off into the darkness, with a tipsy crew.

The ship hit a rock, tearing a hole in the side. William of Malmesbury's version has one survivor, clinging to the rock all night; Orderic Vitalis says there were two. In either case, we have some details that might be true, such as Prince William escaping in a boat, but going back to rescue his half-sister and having his boat capsized when too many people tried to climb aboard.

Prince William's death forced Henry to name his daughter Matilda his heir. When Henry himself died in 1135, his nephew, Stephen of Blois, decided a firm male ruler for England was more important than honoring the oaths he made to support Matilda. Stephen crossed the Channel to claim the throne, and set off almost two decades of civil war.