The Pirate Monk

There were many reasons why someone would become a pirate, I suppose. It was probably rare that a monk would do so, however.

Eustace Busket was more than a monk and a pirate. Born about 1170 near Boulogne, he was a younger son of minor nobility who, not being likely to inherit much in the way of lands or titles, went to Toledo in Spain to study, where supposedly he took up "black magic" and produced marvels. For some reason, he gave up that life, returning home to join a Benedictine monastery at St. Samer near Calais.

At some point he left the monastery and became the seneschal and bailiff for Count Renaud de Dammartin. Eustace was accused of mismanaging his duties, and about 1204 he fled his responsibilities and the accusations. He was declared an outlaw, and became a pirate, sailing the English Channel looking for plunder.

He was a well-known figure, and King John paid him occasionally between 1205 and 1212 to harass Philip II of France. He would sometimes raid the English Coast for fun and profit and be declared an outlaw again, but King John always forgave him eventually to continue the harassment of Philip. John also gave him 30 ships to use in his missions.

In 1212, Eustace switched to supporting France, and when English Civil war broke out in 1215 (ultimately leading to Magna Carta), he supported the English barons against King John. Eustace carried Prince Louis of France to England to join the Barons, and on a 1217 mission to bring Louis aid, he got caught up in the Battle of Dover. Eustace managed to escape, but his enemies caught up with him, and on 24 August 2017, at the Battle of Sandwich, he was caught. We do not know exactly how he was executed, but Mathew Paris portrays him as being beheaded (depicted above).

Medieval Pirates

Piracy on the seven seas goes back a long way.

Think of fairly small ships roughing it on the open sea with little defense, not the rows of cannons you see in ships of later centuries. Even a "royal navy" would be small and not necessarily able to swiftly come to the aid of each other if a couple vessels of well-armed and determined sailors approached them. Also, maintaining a navy could be expensive. Even Henry VI in the early 15th century got rid of his standing navy, prepared to hire ships if ever he needed them.

Not that piracy wasn't a known peril; it just wasn't easy to control, although attempts were made. Of course it was outlawed, but catching and punishing a pirate was not the easiest of tasks.

The image here is a modern translation/copy of the earliest known record of punishment for a pirate prior to the 1700s. It reads:

An order was given to the Bailiffs of York as to the ship which they caused to be arrested because William de Briggeho, who was afterwards hanged for consorting with malefactors who robbed her off Sandwich, was found on board her.
The lord the King, has ascertained by inquisition that the ship, together with the chattels on board her, belonged to William Belemund, of Grimsby, and he commanded the bailiffs that they should cause her to be delivered to William Belemund without delay.
Witness, &c.

1228

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The Liar Paradox

Medieval philosophers categorized several logic puzzles as insolubilia, unsolvable things. Probably the most common of these was (and still is*) the Liar Paradox.

Consider the statement "I am lying." If I am truly lying at that moment, then what I just said was true. If the statement is therefore true, however, then to say "I was lying" would be a lie. So which is it?

One 20th century philosopher used Jean Buridan (c.1300-c.1361, mentioned elsewhere in this blog) to claim that it wasn't really a paradox. Arthur Prior said it wasn't really paradoxical because every statement includes an assertion of its own truth. The statement "I am lying." is therefore taken as true—it carries its own truth independent of other sentences or context— and considering it a paradox is an unnecessary complication.

Buridan actually used the Liar Paradox to prove the existence of God. He put forth two statements:
"God exists."
"None of the sentences in this pair is true."

The only consistent way to assign truth values, that is, to have these two sentences be either true or false, requires making “God exists” be true. In this way, Buridan has “proved” that God does exist. [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

This particular paradox first appears in the middle of the 4th century BCE. Eubulides of Miletus made a list of seven puzzles, one of which was “A man says that he is lying. Is what he says true or false?” His commentary on whether it is true or false is lost to time.

*Those readers of a certain vintage will remember the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "I, Mudd" in which a controlling super-robot is rendered useless by its inability to process the two statements "Everything Harry Mudd says is a lie." followed by Mudd saying "I am lying."

Mortrews

I have mentioned The Forme of Cury [Forms of Cooking] a few times before. It's the cookbook that gathers the best recipes from the cooks of King Richard II. If I had my choice, I'd eat Mortrews frequently!

The original recipe reads:

Mortrews. Take hennes and pork and seeþ hem togyder. Take the lyre of hennes and of þe pork and hewe it small, and grinde it al to doust; take brede ygrated and do þerto, and temper it with the self broth, and alye it with yolkes of ayren; and cast þeron powdour fort. Boile it and do þerin powdour of gynger, sugur, safroun and salt, and loke þat it be stondying; and flour it with powdour gynger.

 An excellent website has translated this as:

Mortrews. Take hens and pork and boil together. Take the liver of hens and of the pork and cut it small, and grind it to a fine powder; take grated bread and add, and mix with the broth, and mix it with egg yolks; and add powdour fort. Boil it and add ginger, sugar, saffron and salt, and make sure it's thick; and garnish with ginger.

The "powdour fort" was a mixture of ground spices.

It could be served as a soup, with more broth, or as a which stew with less broth and more bread. The name apparently comes from the fact that it is all ground up/mixed in a mortar. It sounds to me like an ideal use for leftover meat and bread. If you try it, let me know what you think.

Cassiodorus and Colleges

Yesterday's post mentioned Cassiodorus (c.485-c.585), a contemporary of Boethius, and his description of the relationship between Arithmetic and Music. His full name was Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator. He was not a senator; that was part of his name, although he was a statesman under Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths.

He served in several different roles in government, and his literary skills were so well recognized that he was often asked to draft important documents while he was in Ravenna. (Why Ravenna and not Rome? That is for the next post.) Whether because he was a devoted statesman, or just because of personal inclinations, his writings try to unite the cultural differences between the Eastern and Western Roman empires, between Greek and Roman cultures, between the Roman culture and the invading Goths, and even between established Christian doctrine and heresies. After his retirement from public life, he founded a monastery and turned to writing about religion.

The immediate reason for bringing him up in a medieval blog, however, is his link to medieval universities, which didn't exist for several centuries after his death. We are familiar by now with the medieval curriculum of the trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, Astronomy). You might be surprised to know that Cassiodorus not only listed these fields of study, in that order, but also that he derives them from the study of the Bible.

In his Expositio Psalmorum ["Explanation of the Psalms"], he interprets Psalm 18.5

"Their voice resounds through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the earth"

as the teachings of the Bible being spread throughout the world, and that these teachings are the origin of secular studies. Therefore, mastering the secular arts helps bring one back to better comprehension of the Bible. This was, in fact, considered the original purpose of medieval universities: to train better clerics.

The Philosophy of Music

Much of the medieval attitude about music and its forms came from Boethius (c.480-524 CE). In his de institution music [Latin: "On the laws of music"] he distinguished three types of music:

Instrumental music
Human music
Mundane music

Detail from copy of De musica [source]

Although today we use the word "mundane" to refer to something ordinary, it comes from Latin and refers to the world; Boethius uses it to refer to the music made by the world, that is, the so-called "music of the spheres": that sound, inaudible to human ears, that was made by the friction of the spheres surrounding the Earth in which the planets and other heavenly bodies traveled.

Instrumental music referred to music made by one of several different agents. It could come from something under tension (such as with stringed instruments), by wind, by water, or by percussion. It should be noted that Boethius was not referring to "musical instruments" as much as he used the term to mean that some physical agency was causing the sound. That could be a rushing stream, the wind in the trees, and falling rocks as much as manufactured devices in the hands of a musician. Later writers included singing as part of this category.

Human music was therefore not referring to singing by humans. For the Middle Ages, "music" was all about harmony, and the "harmony" between the physical body and the spiritual side was a serious topic. For example, you must nourish the physical body, but you must not eat so much that you fall into the sin of gluttony. Proper proportion was everything.

In fact, music (as opposed to mere noise) was all about harmony and proportion. That is why Music was studied in the medieval university only after mastering Arithmetic. A contemporary of Boethius, Cassiodorus (485-c.585 CE), compared the two by explaining that

Arithmetic is the discipline of absolute numerable quantity. Music is the discipline which treats of numbers in their relation to those things which are found in sound.

The Name of the Rose

When Gerard Segarelli was rejected by the Franciscans, he took matters into his own hands and formed the Apostolic Brethren in 1260. The Brethren, active in northern Italy, gained many followers with their life of extreme poverty and their message of repentance.

[Source]

In 1274, at the Second Council of Lyon, Pope Honorius IV prohibited all mendicant orders if they were not sanctioned by the papacy. In 1280, the Bishop of Parma imprisoned Segarelli, and in 1286 banished him from the diocese.

The prohibition against unapproved mendicant orders was renewed in 1290 by Pope Nicholas IV, who also began going after those "orders"; the Brethren were a particular target.

In 1294, four members of the sect were burned at the stake. Segarelli himself was sentenced to life in prison, but on 18 July, 1300, he was burned at the stake in Parma after being made to confess that he had relapsed into heresy. The Apostolic Brethren gained a new leader in the charismatic Fra Dolcino, who is worth his own post someday.

The motto of the Brethren under Segarelli, and later under Fra Dolcino, was Poenitentiam agite [Latin: Make penitence]. This was abbreviated to Penitenziagite! and made known to millions of readers 680 years after Segarelli's execution in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.

The Apostolic Brethren

Mendicants

In the later part of the 13th century, a new order was founded in northern Italy.

Sort of.

The founder, Gerard Segarelli, was a resident of a town in the territory of Parma. Poor and uneducated, he wished to follow a strict Christian life. He applied to be a Franciscan, thinking that their life of simplicity and poverty was suitable to his spiritual goals.

They turned him down.

So about 1260, inspired by a picture he had seen of the apostles, he made himself an outfit patterned after that design, sold his house, distributed the money in the marketplace, and became a mendicant, eschewing property, money, a place to live, and anything that might be considered a luxury. He preached repentance, urged the simple life that he embraced, and found many followers. The Apostolic Brethren, or Apostoli, were scoffed at by the Franciscans—they were a little "over the top" in their pursuit of poverty and simplicity.

But their lifestyle was tempting to many: surviving only on alms, living in the moment without plans for tomorrow, with no fixed dwelling, trusting on God's (and other humans') charity. They took no vows; they considered the vows of other orders hypocritical, because the vow of poverty did not mean living as poorly as the Apostolic Brethren were living. They followed one principle only, based on the Acts of the Apostles:

All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them ..., according as anyone had need. [2:44-45]

But this was not to last. Tomorrow I'll tell you how Segarelli's dream ended, only to be remembered over 700 years later in a literary bestseller.

Damnation of Memory

The Roman Severan family, with
Geta "erased" from lower
left by orders of Caracalla [link]

Memory is a tricky thing: it cannot easily be controlled, but steps can be taken.

The Roman Senate had a practice reserved for traitors to the state: Damnatio memoriae [Latin: "Damnation/Condemnation of memory"]. It was intended to remove any mention of that person from official records. On 21 April 395, the Senate condemned Eugenius (blamed for a recent civil war) to Damnatio memoriae, claiming "Let that time be reckoned as if it never was." Another famous example is when the Emperor Caracalla erased the memory of his brother, Geta, which involved physically removing his likeness from artworks. (See the image to the left.)

Damnation of memory was not strictly Roman. Queen Hatshepsut was almost wiped from Egyptian history by her ungrateful stepson, Thutmose III, in the 15th century BCE. Akhenaton promoted his brand of monotheism by removing images of the god Amon. Modern Egypt isn't immune to this practice: witness the recent removal of the name of President Hosni Mubarak and his wife from monuments and public spaces after his downfall.

Snorri Sturluson, mentioned here, tells us that the 10th century earl Hákon Sigurdarson was referred to solely as "the evil earl" long after his death.

The 55th Doge of Venice, Marino Faliero, was executed in 1355 after a failed coup, after which his portrait was removed from the Doge's palace in Venice and the space painted black. The blackened space still exists.

And Magnus Maximus was condemned with Damnatio memoriae, for all the good it did (see the previous two days' posts). Stories have a way of surviving; memory is like that.

Magnus Maximus, Part 2

rom a 14th century Welsh Book of Hours,
this is thought to depict Maximus [link]

Yesterday we introduced Magnus Maximus, a general who briefly became ruler of much of the Western Roman Empire. Leaving the young Emperor Valentinian II in Rome, Maximus ruled over Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa.

He did things that did not sit well with his constituents, however. He is believed to be the first person to order execution for heresy when he executed Priscillian and six followers.* We are so used to thinking of the Middle Ages killing heretics that we would be surprised to know that this wasn't always common. In this case, St. Martin of Tours (mentioned here) tried to prevent it. On the other hand, when Maximus tried to censure Christians for burning down a synagogue, Bishop Ambrose of Milan condemned Maximus' decision.

Maximus also pushed his luck by driving out Valentinian II, who later, with the help of Eastern Emperor Theodosius I, returned and attacked Maximus, defeating him in 388 at the Battle of the Save (near modern Croatia). Maximus surrendered to his enemies at Aquileia; despite pleading for mercy, he was executed.

Maximus had family, and although we are not certain what became of all of them, we have some ideas, and legend offers another. His son, Flavius Victor, was strangled. His wife sought counsel from St. Martin, but we know nothing of her after that; we don't even know her name, although a popular Welsh legend calls her Elen. Maximus had a mother and daughters who were spared. One of his daughters, Sevira, is named on the Pillar of Eliseg as a wife of Vortigern. (The pillar was erected centuries after Vortigern, so we cannot be certain of the accuracy of the data.)

Later historians did not forget the story of a warrior starting in Britain and conquering Rome. They embraced him, and wove him into England's greatest legend. Accordingly, one of his grandsons was Flavius Ambrosius Aurelius, who had a son, Ambrosius Aurelianus. Depending on which ancient historian or modern author you pick, Ambrosius is either the uncle of King Arthur or is the figure on whom King Arthur is based.



*"Priscillianism" will be covered in the near future.

Magnus Maximus, Part 1

Yesterday's post on St. Illide mentioned that he cured the daughter of Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus. Although Maximus was Emperor of Western Roman Empire for only five years (383-85 CE), he has a bearing on medieval legend, and you ought to be introduced.

[link]

Magnus Maximus (c.335-28 August, 388) was a Roman general who served in Africa, then in southwest Germany on the Danube. He went to Britain in 380 and held it against invasions by the Picts and Scots.

In 383, when the current Western Roman emperor, Gratian, became unpopular, Maximus' troops declared him emperor. Maximus took his troops and set out for Rome to take Gratian's place. Gratian and his army met Maximus near Paris, where Gratian's troops were defeated and Gratian was pursued to Lyons and killed.

But Maximus did not become emperor automatically. Gratian had a half-brother, Valentinian II, who was declared Western Emperor. Maximus continued toward Italy to overthrow Valentinian, who was only 12 years old. Valentinian had help, however, from the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius I (once mentioned here regarding the date of an eclipse). Negotiations followed, aided by Bishop Ambrose of Milan (later St. Ambrose, mentioned here disagreeing with Plato). Maximus was given the title Augustus and allowed to rule Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa, while Valentinian II remained on the throne of Italy. Maximus was allowed to mint coins and make laws. He is credited with the first executions for heresy (I'll get to that some day).

He did not, however, remain popular for very long. I'll talk about that tomorrow, as well as tell you about his great-great-grandson, who probably did not exist and whom you all know.

Saint Illide

Yesterday's post featured a picture of the chapel of Saint Illide, belonging to the Château d'Alleuze. The chapel was built in the 12th century and named for a 4th century bishop of Clermont, France. Given that the picture yesterday showed a no-longer-used stone building, you can assume that the stained glass window to the left is not from there. It is found in the Church of Saint-Eutrope in Clermont-Ferrand.

The bishop, alternately known as Illidius or Allyre, is credited with helping Clermont-Ferrand become an important center of monastic culture and religious teaching—probably one of the reasons it was chosen by Pope Urban II for announcing the First Crusade.

Illide supposedly cured the daughter of Emperor Magnus Maximus of Rome. His reputation earned him praise from Gregory of Tours.

Illide died in 385. His feast day is 7 July (except in Clermont, where they celebrate him on 5 June.)

The Castle above Saint-Flour

The picture below was posted on Facebook a few days ago by a long-time friend. (That's his daughter seen to the right of it. Hi, Kyrie!) It is the chapel of St. Illide. As interesting as the chapel is, however, I want to talk about the castle on the hill behind it.


The Château d'Alleuze was built in the 13th century in south central France, looking down on the commune of Saint-Flour. Saint-Flour is named for Florus of Lodève, reputedly the first bishop of Lodève who came to Christianize the area in the 5th century. One of his acts was to strike a rock with his staff, bringing forth water from a spring.

The Château d'Alleuze was built in the 13th century and owned by the bishops of Clermont. Typical for the time, it was built square with round towers at each corner. During the Hundred Years War, it was seized by the Breton Bernard de Garlan, who spent seven years terrorizing the area.

[link]

The locals burned down the castle in 1405 to prevent it from being used as a base for future terrorism. This understandably annoyed the actual owner, a Monseigneur De la Tour, who made the locals restore it to its original state. It survived for centuries afterward, being used for, among other things, a jail by the bishops of Clermont.

A ruin now, it was declared in 1927 as an historic monument, and a recommended tourist spot.

The King of All Birds

The wren, O the wren, is the King of All Birds.
On St. Stephen's Day he got caught in the furze.

So goes a medieval carol. But why would the diminutive—though disproportionately loud—wren be the king of all birds? The Christians of the Middle Ages had a story for that.

God, wanting to know which bird was the king, challenged them all to a contest. Whichever could fly the highest and farthest would be declared king. They all set off, flying until they dropped from weariness. When the eagle was left, and started to fail, the tiny wren popped out from where it was hiding under the eagle's wing, and won the competition.

Cute, but it looks a little contrived after the fact. Why would the wren be considered king, and therefore need a fable to justify it? And why is it important that it got caught in the furze (gorse) on 26 December? A traditional St. Stephen's Day pursuit is to hunt the wren, kill it, and bury it. The is sometimes still done in England, although these days it is pantomimed with an artificial bird.

The Norse story is that the wren betrayed St. Stephen, leading to his martyrdom; hence the hunting and killing of the wren on his feast day.

There's an older Celtic connection of the wren with the past year; in the Netherlands its name means "winter king" because the European wren sings through mid-winter. The hunting and killing, then, is probably symbolic of getting rid of the old year to make way for the new. Its "kingship" in European/Celtic tradition likely stems from this tendency to keep singing its surprisingly loud song when most other birds have disappeared to warmer climes.

Protecting the Jews

The Plague, also called the Black Death, spread across Sicily shortly after the arrival of a fleet of a dozen Genoese galleys bringing goods from the far eastern end of the Mediterranean. This was in October of 1346. A few months later, in January 1348, galleys from Kaffa (in Crimea) reached Genoa and Venice, where outbreaks also began.

The rest of Europe might have been spared—crossing the Alps would be difficult for the Plague carriers—but one of the galleys was driven away from Italy and found shelter in the port of Marseilles on the southern coast of France. That was the real introduction to continental Europe, after which there was no stopping it.

There is plenty of information about the Black Death to be found online—including in the blog—so there is no need to go into details here. There is, however, a specific event related to the Plague that took place on today's date.

Many populations throughout history, unhappy with their lot, either due to general difficulties or tragedy, have looked for a scapegoat. That scapegoat often takes the form of other people who can be labeled as "outsiders" who are not us and whose presence or actions are hurting us. In the case of the Plague, that scapegoat in many locations was the Jews, who were persecuted and killed, accused of poisoning wells (despite the fact that they drank from the very same sources of water), or of general wickedness that had brought down the wrath of God.

Pope Clement VI was moved to produce a papal bull, Quamvis perfidiam, defending the Jews against the accusations, and urging his fellow Christian prelates to defend them in their territories. It was released on 6 July, 1348. Unfortunately, persecution persisted, and so he re-issued it on 26 September.